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Science 17 February 2006:
Vol. 311. no. 5763, pp. 1020 - 1022
DOI: 10.1126/science.1121872
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Reports

Causal Reasoning in Rats

Aaron P. Blaisdell,1* Kosuke Sawa,2 Kenneth J. Leising,1 Michael R. Waldmann3

Empirical research with nonhuman primates appears to support the view that causal reasoning is a key cognitive faculty that divides humans from animals. The claim is that animals approximate causal learning using associative processes. The present results cast doubt on that conclusion. Rats made causal inferences in a basic task that taps into core features of causal reasoning without requiring complex physical knowledge. They derived predictions of the outcomes of interventions after passive observational learning of different kinds of causal models. These competencies cannot be explained by current associative theories but are consistent with causal Bayes net theories.

1 Department of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA.
2 Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Nagoya University, Nagoya 464-8601, Japan.
3 Department of Psychology, University of Göttingen, 37073 Göttingen, Germany.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: blaisdell{at}psych.ucla.edu

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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)