Week 4: Correlation, standing in for cause

The first mechanism that can be systematically misled, and the fact that nothing inside it can detect the difference.

Part II — Interior models15 March 2027Open the slidesWeek 4 seminarSchedule

Associative learning has access to co-occurrence and no access to causal structure. Superstition follows from the mechanism rather than indicating a fault in it — Skinner’s 1948 pigeons are the demonstration, and from the pigeon’s position the routine was working.

The second half is Pfungst on Clever Hans (1911), which established that the experimenter belongs to the apparatus. Every method the rest of the course relies on descends from that finding, including the blinding that decided the pea plant dispute in week 3.