Christopher Hitchcock
Biographic Data
| ID | 1057449 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Christopher Hitchcock |
| GIVEN NAMES | Christopher |
| FAMILY NAME | Hitchcock |
| SIGNATURE | HITCHCOCK C |
| AFFILIATIONS | California Institute of Technology |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-2435-0713 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 37 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 258 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 34 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 3 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1993 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 9 |
The predictive power of autobiographical memory in shaping the mental health of young people
Reduced autobiographical memory (AM) specificity, characterized by difficulty recalling specific past events, is a feature of multiple psychiatric disorders. While meta-analyses indicate that reduced AM specificity can predict future symptom severity, its role as a premorbid risk factor for mental illness onset in young people remains unclear. Our preregistered individual participant data meta-analysis (PROSPERO; CRD42022287786) synthesized longi…
Positive autobiographical memories to counteract low mood in remitted depression
Positive autobiographical memories (AMs) have the potential to repair low mood, but previously depressed individuals have difficulty leveraging their positive AMs for emotion regulation purposes. We examined whether previously depressed individuals benefit from guided, deliberate recollection of preselected AMs to counteract low mood in daily life, utilizing individuals' smartphones to facilitate recollection. Sixty participants enrolled in 2020 …
More than meets the eye
0.66) stimuli were extended more than neutral stimuli. This effect did not differ between depressed and never-depressed participants. Across all participants, images containing objects were extended more than images containing faces. An association was also evident between extension effects in memory for perceptual space and extensions of autobiographical memory across time
Patterns of emotion-network dynamics are orthogonal to mood disorder status
Individuals differ markedly in how they experience the ebb and flow of emotions. In this study, we used daily experience sampling to examine whether these differences reflect the nature and presence of mood disorders or whether they can better be characterized as distinct dynamic emotion profiles that cut-across diagnostic boundaries. We followed 105 individuals in 2019-2020 with diagnoses of major depression, remitted major depression, bipolar d…
The early course and treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder in very young children
BACKGROUND: The introduction of developmentally adapted criteria for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has improved the identification of ≤6-year-old children with clinical needs. Across two studies, we assess predictors of the development of PTSD in young children (PTSD-YC), including the adult-led acute stress disorder (ASD) diagnosis, and provide proof of principle for cognitive-focused therapy for this age range, with the aim of increasing…
Affective working memory in depression
Depressed individuals show a wide range of difficulties in executive functioning (including working memory), which can be a significant burden on everyday mental processes. Theoretical models of depression have proposed these difficulties to be especially pronounced in affective contexts. However, evidence investigating affective working memory (WM) capacity in depressed individuals has shown mixed results. The preregistered study used a complex …
Prevalence and predictive value of ICD‐11 post‐traumatic stress disorder and Complex PTSD diagnoses in children and adolescents exposed to a single‐event trauma
BACKGROUND: The 11th edition of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11) made a number of significant changes to the diagnostic criteria for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). We sought to determine the prevalence and 3-month predictive values of the new ICD-11 PTSD criteria relative to ICD-10 PTSD, in children and adolescents following a single traumatic event. ICD-11 also introduced a diagnosis of Complex PTSD (CPTSD), proposed…
The impact of affective information on working memory
Everyday life is defined by goal states that are continuously reprioritized based on available, often affective information. To pursue these goals, individuals need to process and maintain goal-relevant information, while ignoring potentially salient information that distracts resources from these goals. Empirically, this ability has typically been operationalized as working memory (WM) capacity. A growing body of research is investigating the im…
The Oxford Handbook of Probability and Philosophy
Probability theory is a key tool of the physical, mathematical, and social sciences. It has also been playing an increasingly significant role in philosophy: in epistemology, philosophy of science, ethics, social philosophy, philosophy of religion, and elsewhere. This Handbook encapsulates and furthers the influence of philosophy on probability, and of probability on philosophy. Nearly forty articles summarize the state of play and present new in…
Probabilistic Opinion Pooling
Suppose several individuals (e.g., experts on a panel) each assign probabilities to some events. How can these individual probability assignments be aggregated into a single collective probability assignment? This chapter is a review of several proposed solutions to this problem, focusing on three salient proposals: linear pooling (the weighted or unweighted linear averaging of probabilities), geometric pooling (the weighted or unweighted geometr…
Conditioning, intervening, and decision
Probability and Chance
Graded Causation and Defaults
Recent work in psychology and experimental philosophy has shown that judgments of actual causation are often influenced by consideration of defaults, typicality, and normality. A number of philosophers and computer scientists have also suggested that an appeal to such factors can help deal with problems facing existing accounts of actual causation. This article develops a flexible formal framework for incorporating defaults, typicality, and norma…
Portable Causal Dependence
This article describes research pursued by members of the McDonnell Collaborative on Causal Learning. A number of members independently converged on a similar idea: one of the central functions served by claims of actual causation is to highlight patterns of dependence that are highly portable into novel contexts. I describe in detail how this idea emerged in my own work and also in that of the psychologist Tania Lombrozo. In addition, I use the …
Trumping and contrastive causation
Cause and Norm
Much of the philosophical literature on causation has focused on the concept of “actual” causation, sometimes called “token” causation. In particular, it is this notion of actual causation that many philosophical theories of causation have attempted to capture. In this paper, we address the question: What purpose does this concept serve? As we shall see in the next section, one does not need this concept for purposes of prediction or rational del…
The Oxford handbook of causation
Prevention, Preemption, and the Principle of Sufficient Reason
[Introduction] One event, e, counterfactually depends upon another event, c, just in \ncase e would not have occurred had c not occurred. Beginning with the \nseminal paper of David Lewis in 1973, there has been a lively philosophical \ntradition of trying to analyze token causation in terms of counterfactual \ndependence. The simplest possible counterfactual theory of token \ncausation—henceforth the simple theory—would identify token causation …
The Lovely and the Probable
Three Concepts of Causation
I distinguish three different concepts of causation: Thescientificconcept, or causal structure, is the subject of recent work in causal modeling. Thefolk attributiveconcept has been studied by philosophers of law and social psychologists. Themetaphysicalconcept is the one that metaphysicians have attempted to analyze. I explore the relationships between these three concepts, and suggest that the metaphysical concept is an untenable and dispensabl…
And Away from a Theory of Explanation itself
Beauty and the Bets
Causal Processes and Interactions
Concerning any object of philosophical analysis, we can ask several questions, including the two posed in the title of this paper. Despite difficulties in formulating a precise criterion to distinguish causal processes from pseudoprocesses, and causal interactions from mere spatiotemporal intersections, I argue that Salmon answered the first of these questions with extraordinary clarity. The second question, by contrast, has received very little …
Prediction Versus Accommodation and the Risk of Overfitting
When a scientist uses an observation to formulate a theory, it is no surprise that the resulting theory accurately captures that observation. However, when the theory makes a novel prediction—when it predicts an observation that was not used in its formulation—this seems to provide more substantial confirmation of the theory. This paper presents a new approach to the vexed problem of understanding the epistemic difference between prediction and a…
Of Humean Bondage
There are many ways of attaching two objects together: for example, they can be connected, linked, tied or bound together; and the connection, link, tie or bind can be made of chain, rope, or cement. Every one of these binding methods has been used as a metaphor for causation. What is the real significance of these metaphors? They express a commitment to a certain way of thinking about causation, summarized in the following thesis: ‘In any concre…
Prediction Versus Accommodation and the Risk of Overfitting
When a scientist uses an observation to formulate a theory, it is no surprise that the resulting theory accurately captures that observation. However, when the theory makes a novel prediction—when it predicts an observation that was not used in its formulation—this seems to provide more substantial confirmation of the theory. This paper presents a new approach to the vexed problem of understanding the epistemic difference between prediction and a…
Prevention, Preemption, and the Principle of Sufficient Reason
[Introduction] One event, e, counterfactually depends upon another event, c, just in \ncase e would not have occurred had c not occurred. Beginning with the \nseminal paper of David Lewis in 1973, there has been a lively philosophical \ntradition of trying to analyze token causation in terms of counterfactual \ndependence. The simplest possible counterfactual theory of token \ncausation—henceforth the simple theory—would identify token causation …
Graded Causation and Defaults
Recent work in psychology and experimental philosophy has shown that judgments of actual causation are often influenced by consideration of defaults, typicality, and normality. A number of philosophers and computer scientists have also suggested that an appeal to such factors can help deal with problems facing existing accounts of actual causation. This article develops a flexible formal framework for incorporating defaults, typicality, and norma…
The role of contrast in causal and explanatory claims
Of Humean Bondage
There are many ways of attaching two objects together: for example, they can be connected, linked, tied or bound together; and the connection, link, tie or bind can be made of chain, rope, or cement. Every one of these binding methods has been used as a metaphor for causation. What is the real significance of these metaphors? They express a commitment to a certain way of thinking about causation, summarized in the following thesis: ‘In any concre…
Beauty and the Bets
Contrastive Explanation and the Demons of Determinism
It it tempting to think that if an outcome had some probability of not occurring, then we cannot explain why that outcome in fact occurred. Despite this intuition, most philosophers of science have come to admit the possibility of indeterministic explanation. Yet some of them continue to hold that if an outcome was not determined, it cannot be explained why that outcome rather than some other occurred. I argue that this is an untenable compromise…
A generalized probabilistic theory of causal relevance
A Tale of Two Effects
[Introduction] In recent years, there has been a philosophical cottage industry \nproducing arguments that our concept of causation is not univocal: \nthat there are in fact two (or more) concepts of causation, \ncorresponding to distinct species of causal relation. Papers written in \nthis tradition have borne titles like "Two Concepts of Cause" (Sober \n1985) and "Two Concepts of Causation" (Hall forthcoming). With \ndue apologies to Charles Di…
Conditioning, intervening, and decision
Causality
No One Knows the Date or the Hour
Carter and Leslie (1996) have argued, using Bayes's theorem, that our being alive now supports the hypothesis of an early ‘Doomsday’. Unlike some critics (Eckhardt 1997), we accept their argument in part: given that we exist, our existence now indeed favors ‘Doom sooner’ over ‘Doom later’. The very fact of our existence, however, favors ‘Doom later’. In simple cases, a hypothetical approach to the problem of ‘old evidence’ shows that these two ef…
The Shooting-Room Paradox and Conditionalizing on Measurably Challenged Sets
Portable Causal Dependence
This article describes research pursued by members of the McDonnell Collaborative on Causal Learning. A number of members independently converged on a similar idea: one of the central functions served by claims of actual causation is to highlight patterns of dependence that are highly portable into novel contexts. I describe in detail how this idea emerged in my own work and also in that of the psychologist Tania Lombrozo. In addition, I use the …
Reflections on reflection
The Lovely and the Probable
Three Concepts of Causation
I distinguish three different concepts of causation: Thescientificconcept, or causal structure, is the subject of recent work in causal modeling. Thefolk attributiveconcept has been studied by philosophers of law and social psychologists. Themetaphysicalconcept is the one that metaphysicians have attempted to analyze. I explore the relationships between these three concepts, and suggest that the metaphysical concept is an untenable and dispensabl…
Causal Processes and Interactions
Concerning any object of philosophical analysis, we can ask several questions, including the two posed in the title of this paper. Despite difficulties in formulating a precise criterion to distinguish causal processes from pseudoprocesses, and causal interactions from mere spatiotemporal intersections, I argue that Salmon answered the first of these questions with extraordinary clarity. The second question, by contrast, has received very little …
The Common Cause Principle in Historical Linguistics
Despite the platitude that analytic philosophy is deeply concerned with language, philosophers of science have paid little attention to methodological issues that arise within historical linguistics. I broach this topic by arguing that many inferences in historical linguistics conform to Reichenbach's common cause principle (CCP). Although the scope of CCP is narrower than many have thought, inferences about the genealogies of languages are parti…
Trumping and contrastive causation
A Tale of Two Effects
A generalized probabilistic theory of causal relevance
Reflections on reflection
The role of contrast in causal and explanatory claims
The Common Cause Principle in Historical Linguistics
Despite the platitude that analytic philosophy is deeply concerned with language, philosophers of science have paid little attention to methodological issues that arise within historical linguistics. I broach this topic by arguing that many inferences in historical linguistics conform to Reichenbach's common cause principle (CCP). Although the scope of CCP is narrower than many have thought, inferences about the genealogies of languages are parti…
The Shooting-Room Paradox and Conditionalizing on Measurably Challenged Sets
No One Knows the Date or the Hour
Carter and Leslie (1996) have argued, using Bayes's theorem, that our being alive now supports the hypothesis of an early ‘Doomsday’. Unlike some critics (Eckhardt 1997), we accept their argument in part: given that we exist, our existence now indeed favors ‘Doom sooner’ over ‘Doom later’. The very fact of our existence, however, favors ‘Doom later’. In simple cases, a hypothetical approach to the problem of ‘old evidence’ shows that these two ef…
Contrastive Explanation and the Demons of Determinism
It it tempting to think that if an outcome had some probability of not occurring, then we cannot explain why that outcome in fact occurred. Despite this intuition, most philosophers of science have come to admit the possibility of indeterministic explanation. Yet some of them continue to hold that if an outcome was not determined, it cannot be explained why that outcome rather than some other occurred. I argue that this is an untenable compromise…
The Intransitivity of Causation Revealed in Equations and Graphs
[Introduction] We live in exciting times. By 'we' I mean philosophers studying \nthe nature of causation. The past decade or so has \nwitnessed a flurry of philosophical activity aimed at cracking \nthis nut, and, surprisingly, real progress has been made. Two \ndevelopments are especially worthy of note. First, there has been a \nresurgence of interest in the counterfactual theory of causation, given \nits best-known formulation by David Lewis. …
A Tale of Two Effects
A Tale of Two Effects
[Introduction] In recent years, there has been a philosophical cottage industry \nproducing arguments that our concept of causation is not univocal: \nthat there are in fact two (or more) concepts of causation, \ncorresponding to distinct species of causal relation. Papers written in \nthis tradition have borne titles like "Two Concepts of Cause" (Sober \n1985) and "Two Concepts of Causation" (Hall forthcoming). With \ndue apologies to Charles Di…
Causality
Book Review| October 01 2001 CAUSALITY: MODELS, REASONING AND INFERENCE CAUSALITY: MODELS, REASONING AND INFERENCE. By Judea Pearl. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Pp. xvi, 384. Christopher Hitchcock Christopher Hitchcock Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google The Philosophical Review (2001) 110 (4): 639–641. https://doi.org/10.1215/00318108-110-4-639 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio …
Causality
Of Humean Bondage
There are many ways of attaching two objects together: for example, they can be connected, linked, tied or bound together; and the connection, link, tie or bind can be made of chain, rope, or cement. Every one of these binding methods has been used as a metaphor for causation. What is the real significance of these metaphors? They express a commitment to a certain way of thinking about causation, summarized in the following thesis: ‘In any concre…
Beauty and the Bets
Causal Processes and Interactions
Concerning any object of philosophical analysis, we can ask several questions, including the two posed in the title of this paper. Despite difficulties in formulating a precise criterion to distinguish causal processes from pseudoprocesses, and causal interactions from mere spatiotemporal intersections, I argue that Salmon answered the first of these questions with extraordinary clarity. The second question, by contrast, has received very little …
Prediction Versus Accommodation and the Risk of Overfitting
When a scientist uses an observation to formulate a theory, it is no surprise that the resulting theory accurately captures that observation. However, when the theory makes a novel prediction—when it predicts an observation that was not used in its formulation—this seems to provide more substantial confirmation of the theory. This paper presents a new approach to the vexed problem of understanding the epistemic difference between prediction and a…
And Away from a Theory of Explanation itself
Prevention, Preemption, and the Principle of Sufficient Reason
[Introduction] One event, e, counterfactually depends upon another event, c, just in \ncase e would not have occurred had c not occurred. Beginning with the \nseminal paper of David Lewis in 1973, there has been a lively philosophical \ntradition of trying to analyze token causation in terms of counterfactual \ndependence. The simplest possible counterfactual theory of token \ncausation—henceforth the simple theory—would identify token causation …
The Lovely and the Probable
Three Concepts of Causation
I distinguish three different concepts of causation: Thescientificconcept, or causal structure, is the subject of recent work in causal modeling. Thefolk attributiveconcept has been studied by philosophers of law and social psychologists. Themetaphysicalconcept is the one that metaphysicians have attempted to analyze. I explore the relationships between these three concepts, and suggest that the metaphysical concept is an untenable and dispensabl…
Cause and Norm
Much of the philosophical literature on causation has focused on the concept of “actual” causation, sometimes called “token” causation. In particular, it is this notion of actual causation that many philosophical theories of causation have attempted to capture. In this paper, we address the question: What purpose does this concept serve? As we shall see in the next section, one does not need this concept for purposes of prediction or rational del…
The Oxford handbook of causation
Trumping and contrastive causation
Portable Causal Dependence
This article describes research pursued by members of the McDonnell Collaborative on Causal Learning. A number of members independently converged on a similar idea: one of the central functions served by claims of actual causation is to highlight patterns of dependence that are highly portable into novel contexts. I describe in detail how this idea emerged in my own work and also in that of the psychologist Tania Lombrozo. In addition, I use the …
Probability and Chance
Epistemology (25 works) · Philosophy (25 works) · Philosophy and History of Science (16 works) · Psychology (16 works) · Computer Science (14 works) · Mathematics (13 works) · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics (11 works) · Metaphysics (10 works) · Philosophy of science (10 works) · Causation (9 works)