Department of Philosophy, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708, United States of America; Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708, United States of America; Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708, United States of America; Duke Institute for Brain Sciences, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708, United States of America.
Department of Philosophy, Lake Forest College, Lake Forest, IL 60045, United States of America; Neuroscience Program, Lake Forest College, Lake Forest, IL 60045, United States of America.
Cognition. 2021 Apr;209:104574. doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2020.104574. Epub 2021 Jan 11.
People frequently entertain counterfactual thoughts, or mental simulations about alternative ways the world could have been. But the perceived plausibility of those counterfactual thoughts varies widely. The current article interfaces research in the philosophy and semantics of counterfactual statements with the psychology of mental simulations, and it explores the role of perceived similarity in judgments of counterfactual plausibility. We report results from seven studies (N = 6405) jointly supporting three interconnected claims. First, the perceived plausibility of a counterfactual event is predicted by the perceived similarity between the possible world in which the imagined situation is thought to occur and the actual world. Second, when people attend to differences between imagined possible worlds and the actual world, they think of the imagined possible worlds as less similar to the actual world and tend to judge counterfactuals in such worlds as less plausible. Lastly, when people attend to what is identical between imagined possible worlds and the actual world, they think of the imagined possible worlds as more similar to the actual world and tend to judge counterfactuals in such worlds as more plausible. We discuss these results in light of philosophical, semantic, and psychological theories of counterfactual thinking.
人们经常会产生反事实思维，即对世界本来可能的样子进行心理模拟。但是，这些反事实思维的感知合理性差异很大。本文将反事实陈述的哲学和语义研究与心理模拟的心理学联系起来，探讨感知相似性在反事实合理性判断中的作用。我们报告了七个研究（N=6405）的结果，这些研究共同支持三个相互关联的观点。首先，想象情景发生的可能世界与实际世界之间的感知相似性，预测了反事实事件的感知合理性。其次，当人们注意到想象中的可能世界与实际世界之间的差异时，他们会认为想象中的可能世界与实际世界的相似性较小，并倾向于判断这些世界中的反事实情况不太合理。最后，当人们注意到想象中的可能世界与实际世界之间的相同点时，他们会认为想象中的可能世界与实际世界的相似性较大，并倾向于判断这些世界中的反事实情况更合理。我们根据反事实思维的哲学、语义和心理学理论讨论了这些结果。
