Causation In Psychology

Download or read book Causation in Psychology written by John Campbell and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2020-12-01 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A renowned philosopher argues that singular causation in the mind is not grounded in general patterns of causation, a claim on behalf of human distinctiveness, which has implications for the future of social robots. A blab droid is a robot with a body shaped like a pizza box, a pair of treads, and a smiley face. Guided by an onboard video camera, it roams hotel lobbies and conference centers, asking questions in the voice of a seven-year-old. “Can you help me?” “What is the worst thing you’ve ever done?” “Who in the world do you love most?” People pour their hearts out in response. This droid prompts the question of what we can hope from social robots. Might they provide humanlike friendship? Philosopher John Campbell doesn’t think so. He argues that, while a social robot can remember the details of a person’s history better than some spouses can, it cannot empathize with the human mind, because it lacks the faculty for thinking in terms of singular causation. Causation in Psychology makes the case that singular causation is essential and unique to the human species. From the point of view of practical action, knowledge of what generally causes what is often all one needs. But humans are capable of more. We have a capacity to imagine singular causation. Unlike robots and nonhuman animals, we don’t have to rely on axioms about pain to know how ongoing suffering is affecting someone’s ability to make decisions, for example, and this knowledge is not a derivative of general rules. The capacity to imagine singular causation, Campbell contends, is a core element of human freedom and of the ability to empathize with human thoughts and feelings.

Download or read book Understanding Counterfactuals, Understanding Causation written by Christoph Hoerl and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2011-11-03 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Twelve essays explore what bearing empirical findings might have on philosophical concerns about counterfactuals and causation, and how, in turn, work in philosophy might help clarify issues in empirical work on the relationships between causal and counterfactual thought.

Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Causal Reasoning written by Michael Waldmann and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 769 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Causal reasoning is one of our most central cognitive competencies, enabling us to adapt to our world. Causal knowledge allows us to predict future events, or diagnose the causes of observed facts. We plan actions and solve problems using knowledge about cause-effect relations. Without our ability to discover and empirically test causal theories, we would not have made progress in various empirical sciences. The handbook brings together the leading researchers in the field of causal reasoning and offers state-of-the-art presentations of theories and research. It provides introductions of competing theories of causal reasoning, and discusses its role in various cognitive functions and domains. The final section presents research from neighboring fields.

Download or read book Causation with a Human Face written by James Woodward and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021 with total page 425 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The past few decades have seen an explosion of research on causal reasoning in philosophy, computer science, and statistics, as well as descriptive research in psychology about how people reason about causes. Causation with a Human Face integrates these lines of research and argues for an understanding of how each can inform the other: normative ideas can suggest interesting experiments, while descriptive results can suggest important normative concepts. Woodward's overall framework builds on an interventionist treatment of causation, and discusses proposals about the role of invariant or stable relationships in successful causal reasoning and the notion of proportionality. He argues that these normative ideas are reflected in the causal judgments that people actually make as a descriptive matter.

Download or read book Research Design written by Stephen Gorard and published by SAGE. This book was released on 2013-02-01 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Research design is of critical importance in social research, despite its relative neglect in many methods resources. Early consideration of design in relation to research questions leads to the elimination or diminution of threats to eventual research claims, by encouraging internal validity and substantially reducing the number of alternative explanations for any finite number of research ′observations′. This new book: discusses the nature of design; gives an introduction to design notation; offers a flexible approach to new designs; looks at a range of standard design models; and presents craft tips for real-life problems and compromises. Most importantly, it provides the rationale for preferring one design over another within any given context. Each section is illustrated with case studies of real work and concludes with suggested readings and topics for discussion in seminars and workshops, making it an ideal textbook for postgraduate research methods courses. Based on the author′s teaching on the ESRC Doctoral Training Centre "Masters in Research Methods" at the University of Birmingham, and his ongoing work for the ESRC Researcher Development Initiative, this is an essential text for postgraduate researchers and academics. There is no book like Research Design on the market that addresses all of these issues in an easy to comprehend style, for those who want to design research and make critical judgements about the designs of others.

Download or read book Causal Learning written by Alison Gopnik and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2007-03-22 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Understanding causal structure is a central task of human cognition. Causal learning underpins the development of our concepts and categories, our intuitive theories, and our capacities for planning, imagination and inference. During the last few years, there has been an interdisciplinary revolution in our understanding of learning and reasoning: Researchers in philosophy, psychology, and computation have discovered new mechanisms for learning the causal structure of the world. This new work provides a rigorous, formal basis for theory theories of concepts and cognitive development, and moreover, the causal learning mechanisms it has uncovered go dramatically beyond the traditional mechanisms of both nativist theories, such as modularity theories, and empiricist ones, such as association or connectionism.

Download or read book Psychiatry as Cognitive Neuroscience written by Matthew Broome and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2009-05-14 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Psychiatry as Cognitive Neuroscience' is a philosophical analysis of the study of psychpathology, considering how cognitive neuroscience has been applied in psychiatry. The text examines many neuroscientific methods, such as neuroimaging, and a variety of psychiatric disorders, including depression, and schizophrenia.