TY - JOUR
T1 - Inference and coherence in causal-based artifact categorization
AU - Puebla, Guillermo
AU - Chaigneau, Sergio E.
N1 - Funding Information:
We are grateful to Cristián Coo, Vicente Soto and Mauricio Ríos for their help in data collection. We are also grateful to Bob Rehder for valuable comments and suggestions for the experiments and earlier versions of this manuscript. This work was supported by FONDECYT Grant 1100426 to the second author. Parts of these analyses were presented at the 33rd Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society.
PY - 2014/1
Y1 - 2014/1
N2 - In four experiments, we tested conditions under which artifact concepts support inference and coherence in causal categorization. In all four experiments, participants categorized scenarios in which we systematically varied information about artifacts' associated design history, physical structure, user intention, user action and functional outcome, and where each property could be specified as intact, compromised or not observed. Consistently across experiments, when participants received complete information (i.e., when all properties were observed), they categorized based on individual properties and did not show evidence of using coherence to categorize. In contrast, when the state of some property was not observed, participants gave evidence of using available information to infer the state of the unobserved property, which increased the value of the available information for categorization. Our data offers answers to longstanding questions regarding artifact categorization, such as whether there are underlying causal models for artifacts, which properties are part of them, whether design history is an artifact's causal essence, and whether physical appearance or functional outcome is the most central artifact property.
AB - In four experiments, we tested conditions under which artifact concepts support inference and coherence in causal categorization. In all four experiments, participants categorized scenarios in which we systematically varied information about artifacts' associated design history, physical structure, user intention, user action and functional outcome, and where each property could be specified as intact, compromised or not observed. Consistently across experiments, when participants received complete information (i.e., when all properties were observed), they categorized based on individual properties and did not show evidence of using coherence to categorize. In contrast, when the state of some property was not observed, participants gave evidence of using available information to infer the state of the unobserved property, which increased the value of the available information for categorization. Our data offers answers to longstanding questions regarding artifact categorization, such as whether there are underlying causal models for artifacts, which properties are part of them, whether design history is an artifact's causal essence, and whether physical appearance or functional outcome is the most central artifact property.
KW - Artifacts
KW - Causal inference
KW - Causal-based categorization
KW - Coherence effect
KW - Essentialism
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84886819130&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.cognition.2013.10.001
DO - 10.1016/j.cognition.2013.10.001
M3 - Article
C2 - 24184394
AN - SCOPUS:84886819130
SN - 0010-0277
VL - 130
SP - 50
EP - 65
JO - Cognition
JF - Cognition
IS - 1
ER -