Reasoning About Contingencies, Correlations, and Causes

We are capable of remarkable insight when we seek to explain things by gathering evidence and isolating the mechanisms that drive complex phenomena. The ability to test hypotheses in order to discover mechanisms proved to be the key to isolating germs or microorganisms. Knowledge of these pathogens enabled the revolution in medicine. The average human lifespan has quite literally been doubled in large part on the basis of understanding the causes for disease. People face challenges when confronted with illusory conjunctions between events that appear to cause one another. The mind can play tricks on us when we attempt to read patterns and make predictions. The left frontal lobe may be particularly involved in inferences and making predictions about outcomes. The timing of when feedback is delivered and the schedule of reinforcement can lead us to believe that we have more control than we do over outcomes, or that a particular event is causing another event, when it is actually not. The characteristics of physical events in space and time influence whether we perceive a causal connection. The parietal cortex is involved in perceiving causal information in space, while the basal ganglia are involved in evaluating the timing of events for establishing causation. We sometimes experience an illusion that our thoughts are controlling circumstances. This experience often results from implicit cognitive phenomena including priming and the perception that others may be helping us to perform a task.