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Evaluating everyday explanations.

Jeffrey C Zemla1, Steven Sloman2, Christos Bechlivanidis3

  • 1Department of Cognitive, Linguistic, and Psychological Sciences, Brown University, Providence, RI, 02912, USA. jzemla@brown.edu.

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Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

People prefer complex explanations, not simple ones, to understand phenomena. This study analyzed online explanations to find what makes them high-quality, revealing a preference for multiple causal mechanisms.

Keywords:
Causal reasoningExplanationKnowledge

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Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Science
  • Psychology of Learning
  • Science Communication

Background:

  • Understanding complex phenomena often relies on explanations from others.
  • Research has focused on scientific explanations, with less attention on everyday, naturalistic explanations.
  • Evaluating the quality of these everyday explanations is crucial for effective communication.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To assess how various explanatory criteria predict judgments of explanation quality in naturalistic settings.
  • To investigate people's preferences for explanatory features beyond traditional scientific virtues.
  • To understand the factors influencing the perceived quality of online explanations.

Main Methods:

  • Utilized a corpus of diverse explanations from online sources, including Reddit's "Explain Like I'm Five".
  • Applied statistical analysis to determine the predictive power of different explanatory criteria on perceived quality.
  • Compared the effectiveness of established explanatory virtues against other factors.

Main Results:

  • Some traditional explanatory virtues predict quality in naturalistic contexts.
  • Simplicity was found not to be a significant predictor of explanation quality.
  • A notable preference for complex explanations invoking multiple causal mechanisms was observed.

Conclusions:

  • People's evaluation of everyday explanations differs from purely scientific criteria.
  • The preference for complexity may stem from a desire for inevitability in the explained effect.
  • Future research should consider the role of causal depth in everyday explanation quality.