Instrumental action and causal representation

Abstract

Abstract This chapter examines instrumental action as a basic behavioural marker of causal cognition by investigating the concordance between human causal judgements and instrumental performance across variations in the parameters of an action–outcome relation. It is also concerned with whether or not animal action exhibits the necessary prerequisite for an intentional account, namely that it is mediated by some representation of the action-outcome association. Finally, it analyses whether human causal judgements and animal actions are mediated by comparable processes in terms of their susceptibility to causal illusions.