Choosing Among Causal Agents in a Dynamic Environment
Abstract
Participants in a video game environment were required to make a series of decisions in which they must identify which of three targets was causing a distal explosion. The potential targets were firing weapons which could produce an explosion after a constant or variable delay, a delay that was filled or unfilled with an auditory event, and may have produced explosions probabilistically. Delays had profound effects on accuracy and decision latencies, decreasing weapon effectiveness from 100% to 50% had little effect on accuracy and modest effects on latencies (men only), filling a delay helped under very limited conditions, and varying the delay actually improved performance for longer (average) delays. Furthermore, men's decision accuracy was higher but not when prior video game experience was controlled for. In contrast, women observed their targets for much longer before making a choice regardless of prior experience. The results disconfirmed the proposed forward inference model and instead supported the operation of a backward inference model of causal choice.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jul 30, 2009
- Accession Number
- ADA505178
Entities
People
- Michael E. Young
Organizations
- Southern Illinois University Carbondale