How laypeople evaluate scientific explanations containing jargon

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Science Communication

Background:

• Individuals depend on others' expertise for world understanding.
• Assessing the quality of explanations is challenging for non-experts.

Purpose of the Study:

• Investigate why scientific explanations with jargon are perceived as more satisfying by laypeople.
• Determine the conditions under which jargon inclusion impacts explanation satisfaction and comprehensibility.
• Identify strategies to mitigate biased judgments of explanations containing jargon.

Main Methods:

• Conducted 9 experiments with 6,698 participants.
• Focused on scientific explanations incorporating jargon.
• Analyzed the impact of jargon on explanation satisfaction and comprehensibility.

Main Results:

• Jargon increases explanation satisfaction because laypeople assume it fills informational gaps.
• Despite decreasing comprehensibility, jargon leads to higher perceived quality.
• Engaging in explanation generation debiases judgments and improves self-assessment calibration.

Conclusions:

• Laypeople's reliance on jargon as a proxy for completeness can lead to misjudgments of explanation quality.
• Active engagement, such as generating explanations, can enhance critical evaluation skills for scientific information.