The Counterfactual Simulation Model (CSM) proposes that people make causal judgments by mentally simulating what would have happened in relevant counterfactual scenarios. The model assumes that causal judgments incorporate two aspects: whether-causation (would the outcome have occurred without the candidate cause?) and how-causation (did the candidate cause affect how the outcome occurred?). The CSM accurately predicts causal judgments for simple billiard ball scenarios (2 or 3 balls). Here, we explore whether it also captures people’s judgments in more complex situations (up to 12 balls). We measured whether-causation (Experiment 1), how-causation (Experiment 2), and causal judgments (Experiment 3) for billiard ball scenarios varying in complexity. A model combining both whether- and how-causation best predicted causal judgments, though a how-causation-only model performed almost as well. The CSM’s whether-causation predictions diverged from human judgments in complex scenarios, while how-causation predictions remained robust. This suggests that when participants make causal judgments, they might shift from counterfactual simulation toward simpler force-tracking heuristics as complexity increases.
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