The role of causal structure in implicit cognition
Distinguishing between mere association and causation is crucial for successful interactions with the environment: Only causal, but not merely associated, stimuli allow humans to produce rewards and avoid punishments by intervening on causal systems. Accordingly, prior research has demonstrated that explicit (controlled) cognition represents causal relationships above and beyond mere association; however, it is unclear whether this difference is also reflected by implicit (automatic) cognition. In the present studies, participants (total N = 2570) observed causal events during which two stimuli were equally associated with positive or negative outcomes but only one of them was causally responsible for these outcomes. Across 5 paradigms, differences in causal status were consistently reflected not only by explicit measures of evaluation (Likert scales; Cohen’s d = .27, BF10 > 10^37) but also by their implicit counterparts (Implicit Association Tests; Cohen’s d = .22, BF10 > 10^24). This result emerged in both within-participant and between-participant designs and irrespective of whether exposure to the causal events was preceded by detailed verbal instructions or not. Moreover, the effect was sensitive to the valence of the outcome, with causal responsibility for positive events resulting in stronger positive evaluations and causal responsibility for negative events in stronger negative evaluations than mere association with such events. Overall, contrary to most dual-process accounts, these findings suggest that implicit cognition can encode causal relationships and thereby contribute to adaptive decision making.