9 October 2023, PhD defense, Ivar Kolvoort

In my PhD thesis, I present research into human causal cognition using a variety of perspectives and methodologies. Causal cognition refers to people's ability to understand cause-and-effect relationships and to reason about how events are connected in terms of causes and effects. This plays a crucial role in most of our daily activities, including decision-making, problem-solving, and learning. The research in my thesis is structured in three parts. In the Part 1, I present experimental research investigating variability in causal judgments and the effect of time pressure on causal reasoning. In Part 2, I develop and test a new computational cognitive model of causal reasoning: the Bayesian Mutation Sampler. Lastly, in Part 3, I identify a lack of an embodied perspective on causal cognition. To address this gap, I put forward an affordance-based theory of causal engagement that is grounded in the principles of ecological psychology and enactivism.