{"pk":24068,"title":"Paradoxical parsimony: How latent complexity favors theory simplicity","subtitle":null,"abstract":"Investigating how people evaluate more or less complex causal theories has been a focal point of research. However, previous studies have either focused on token-level causation or restricted themselves to very small sets of explanatory variables. We provide a new approach for modeling theory selection that foregrounds the balance between observed and latent structure in the mechanism being explained. We combine a Bayesian framework with program induction, allowing an unbounded and partially observable model space through sampling, and reflecting how a preference for simplicity emerges naturally in this setting. Through simulation, we identify two rational principles: (1) Simpler explanations should be favored as latent uncertainty (the number of hidden variables) increases; (2) latent structure is attributed a larger role when the observable patterns become less compressible. We conducted a behavioral experiment and found that human judgments tended to reflect these principles, indicating that people are sensitive to latent uncertainty when selecting between explanations.","language":"eng","license":{"name":"","short_name":"","text":null,"url":""},"keywords":[{"word":"Philosophy; Psychology; Causal reasoning; Learning; Bayesian modeling"}],"section":"Papers with Poster Presentation","is_remote":true,"remote_url":"https://escholarship.org/uc/item/33r065cs","frozenauthors":[{"first_name":"Tianwei","middle_name":"","last_name":"Gong","name_suffix":"","institution":"University of Edinburgh","department":""},{"first_name":"Simon","middle_name":"","last_name":"Valentin","name_suffix":"","institution":"University of Edinburgh","department":""},{"first_name":"Chris","middle_name":"","last_name":"Lucas","name_suffix":"","institution":"University of Edinburgh","department":""},{"first_name":"Neil","middle_name":"R.","last_name":"Bramley","name_suffix":"","institution":"University of Edinburgh","department":""}],"date_submitted":null,"date_accepted":null,"date_published":"2024-01-01T18:00:00Z","render_galley":null,"galleys":[{"label":"PDF","type":"pdf","path":"https://journalpub.escholarship.org/cognitivesciencesociety/article/24068/galley/13662/download/"},{"label":"PDF","type":"pdf","path":"https://journalpub.escholarship.org/cognitivesciencesociety/article/24068/galley/21437/download/"}]}