Causes and Explanations

Causes and Explanations

• We have already seen that causes depend on explanations– What we consider to be a cause depends on

what we are trying to explain

• So, how good are people at giving explanations?

Shallow explanation

• Do you know how – A flush toilet works?– A derailleur system works?– A car engine works?– A computer works?

Shallow explanation

• Rosenblit & Keil– Asked people whether they could generate a

good explanation– Had them generate an explanation– Showed them a good explanation– Had them evaluate their own explanation

against the good one.– People were not good at knowing when they

could provide a good explanation?

Why?

• People are usually good at predicting what they know.– Metacognition research in memory– Good at predicting whether they know the plots

of movies

• Factors that affect explanations– People have mental simulations of complex

objects working– Causal explanations are recursive

Recursion in explanation

• At the top level, we know the parts of an object and the spatial relations between them.

• Then, we need to know the functional components, and how they are connected.

• Then, we need to know how those functional components operate

Becoming better at explaining

• Practice really does help– Teaching helps learning– Why? Teachers have to explain things.

• Teaching lets people practice giving explanations

• Study hint– Many students study for exams by doing

recognition.– Study by producing explanations.

Distribution of expertise

• Causal knowledge is distributed across people

• We are very good at knowing who to go to for particular kinds of explanations

• Children are also sensitive to domains of expertise– Studies by Keil with kids– Someone who know how refrigerators work is more

likely to know how stereos work than about what makes people smart.