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Looking at Mental Images: Eye-Tracking Mental Simulation During Retrospective Causal Judgment.

Publication ,  Journal Article
Krasich, K; O'Neill, K; De Brigard, F
Published in: Cognitive science
March 2024

How do people evaluate causal relationships? Do they just consider what actually happened, or do they also consider what could have counterfactually happened? Using eye tracking and Gaussian process modeling, we investigated how people mentally simulated past events to judge what caused the outcomes to occur. Participants played a virtual ball-shooting game and then-while looking at a blank screen-mentally simulated (a) what actually happened, (b) what counterfactually could have happened, or (c) what caused the outcome to happen. Our findings showed that participants moved their eyes in patterns consistent with the actual or counterfactual events that they mentally simulated. When simulating what caused the outcome to occur, participants moved their eyes consistent with simulations of counterfactual possibilities. These results favor counterfactual theories of causal reasoning, demonstrate how eye movements can reflect simulation during this reasoning and provide a novel approach for investigating retrospective causal reasoning and counterfactual thinking.

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Published In

Cognitive science

DOI

EISSN

1551-6709

ISSN

0364-0213

Publication Date

March 2024

Volume

48

Issue

3

Start / End Page

e13426

Related Subject Headings

  • Thinking
  • Retrospective Studies
  • Problem Solving
  • Judgment
  • Humans
  • Eye-Tracking Technology
  • Experimental Psychology
  • 5204 Cognitive and computational psychology
  • 5202 Biological psychology
  • 5201 Applied and developmental psychology
 

Citation

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Krasich, K., O’Neill, K., & De Brigard, F. (2024). Looking at Mental Images: Eye-Tracking Mental Simulation During Retrospective Causal Judgment. Cognitive Science, 48(3), e13426. https://doi.org/10.1111/cogs.13426
Krasich, Kristina, Kevin O’Neill, and Felipe De Brigard. “Looking at Mental Images: Eye-Tracking Mental Simulation During Retrospective Causal Judgment.Cognitive Science 48, no. 3 (March 2024): e13426. https://doi.org/10.1111/cogs.13426.
Krasich K, O’Neill K, De Brigard F. Looking at Mental Images: Eye-Tracking Mental Simulation During Retrospective Causal Judgment. Cognitive science. 2024 Mar;48(3):e13426.
Krasich, Kristina, et al. “Looking at Mental Images: Eye-Tracking Mental Simulation During Retrospective Causal Judgment.Cognitive Science, vol. 48, no. 3, Mar. 2024, p. e13426. Epmc, doi:10.1111/cogs.13426.
Krasich K, O’Neill K, De Brigard F. Looking at Mental Images: Eye-Tracking Mental Simulation During Retrospective Causal Judgment. Cognitive science. 2024 Mar;48(3):e13426.
Journal cover image

Published In

Cognitive science

DOI

EISSN

1551-6709

ISSN

0364-0213

Publication Date

March 2024

Volume

48

Issue

3

Start / End Page

e13426

Related Subject Headings

  • Thinking
  • Retrospective Studies
  • Problem Solving
  • Judgment
  • Humans
  • Eye-Tracking Technology
  • Experimental Psychology
  • 5204 Cognitive and computational psychology
  • 5202 Biological psychology
  • 5201 Applied and developmental psychology