Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

What do we learn from a causal explanation? Upon being told that The fire occurred because a lit match was dropped, welearn that both of these events occurred, and that there is a causal relationship between them. However, causal explanationsof the kind E because C typically disclose much more than what is explicitly stated. Here, we offer a communication-theoretic account of causal explanations and show specifically that explanations can provide information about the extentto which a cited cause is normal or abnormal, and about the causal structure of the situation.In Experiment 1, we demonstrate that people infer the normality of a cause from an explanation when they know theunderlying causal structure. In Experiment 2, we show that people infer the causal structure from an explanation ifthey know the normality of the cited cause. We find these patterns both for scenarios that manipulate the statistical andprescriptive normality of events.Finally, we consider how the communicative function of explanations, as highlighted in this series of experiments, mayhelp to elucidate the distinctive roles that normality and causal structure play in causal explanation. Link to pre-print:https://psyarxiv.com/x5mqc