Temporal delays can facilitate causal attribution: Towards a general timeframe bias in causal induction

Two variables are usually recognised as determinants of human causal learning: the contingency between a candidate cause and effect, and the temporal and/or spatial contiguity between them. A common finding is that reductions in temporal contiguity produce concomitant decrements in causal judgement. This finding had previously (Shanks & Dickinson, 1987 Shanks, D. R. and Dickinson, A. 1987. “Associative accounts of causality judgement”. In Psychology of learning and motivation-advances in research and theory, Edited by: Bower, G. H. Vol. 21, 229–261. San Diego, CA: Academic Press. [Google Scholar]) been interpreted as evidence that causal induction is based on associative learning processes. Buehner and May (2002 Buehner, M. J. and May, J. 2002. Knowledge mediates the timeframe of covariation assessment in human causal induction. Thinking and Reasoning, 8(4): 269–295. [Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar], 2003 Buehner, M. J. and May, J. 2003. Rethinking temporal contiguity and the judgement of causality: Effects of prior knowledge, experience, and reinforcement procedure. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 56(A5): 865–890. [Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar], 2004 Buehner, M. J. and May, J. 2004. Abolishing the effect of reinforcement delay on human causal learning. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 57(B2): 179–191. [Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar]) have challenged this notion by demonstrating that the impact of temporal delay depends on expectations about the timeframe between cause and effect. A corollary of this knowledge-mediation account is that in certain situations longer delays could facilitate, while shorter delays should impair, causal learning. Here we present two experiments involving a physical apparatus that demonstrate a detrimental effect of contiguity under certain conditions. In contrast to all previous studies, delays universally promoted causal learning. This evidence is clearly at variance with the notion of a bottom-up contiguity bias in causal induction. A new, more general timeframe bias is discussed.