Mental models and counterfactual thoughts about what might have been
Abstract
Counterfactual thoughts about what might have been ('if only em leader ') are pervasive in everyday life. They are related to causal thoughts, they help people learn from experience and they influence diverse cognitive activities, from creativity to probability judgements. They give rise to emotions and social ascriptions such as guilt, regret and blame. People show remarkable regularities in the aspects of the past they mentally 'undo' in their counterfactual thoughts. These regularities provide clues about their mental representations and cognitive processes, such as keeping in mind true possibilities, and situations that are false but temporarily supposed to be true.
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These changes are normally expected to be minimal.
“Furthermore, these changes are normally expected to be minimal [143].”
From A Survey of Contrastive and Counterfactual Explanation Generation Methods for Explainable Artificial Intelligence (2021) · cites this paper as [143]
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- Authors
- Byrne, R. M. J.
- Affiliations
- Trinity College Dublin (IE)
- Corresponding author
- Byrne, Ruth M.J.
- ORCID
- Byrne, Ruth M.J.
- Venue
- Trends in Cognitive Sciences
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2002-10
- Volume
- 6
- Issue
- 10
- Pages
- 426-431
- ISSN
- 1364-6613 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2161797325
- Cited by
- 282
- References
- 89
- Citations by year
- 2026: 6 · 2025: 9 · 2024: 15 · 2023: 14 · 2022: 13 · 2021: 10 · 2020: 28 · 2019: 41 · 2018: 7 · 2017: 8 · 2016: 7 · 2015: 20 · 2014: 7 · 2013: 16 · 2012: 16
- FWCI
- 1.25
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Trends in Cognitive Sciences (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- Johnson and Johnson
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › Logic, Reasoning, and Knowledge
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › General Decision Sciences › Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Memory Processes and Influences
- Keywords
- counterfactual reasoning, mental models, causal reasoning, experiential learning, creativity, probability judgment, guilt and regret, blame, mental representation, counterfactual emotions
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