Harry Potter and the sorcerer's scope: latent scope biases in explanatory reasoning.
What makes a good explanation? We examine the function of latent scope, i.e., the number of unobserved phenomena that an explanation can account for. We show that individuals prefer narrow latent scope explanations-those that account for fewer unobserved effects-to broader explanations. In Experimen...
| Publicado en: | Memory & Cognition Vol. 39; no. 3; pp. 527 - 536 |
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| Autores principales: | , , |
| Formato: | Artículo |
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Springer Nature
Apr2011
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ssf&AN=64881384&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: ssf uiTerm: 64881384 longDbName: Social Sciences Full Text (H.W. Wilson) uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 0090502X MEG jtl: Memory & Cognition issn: 0090502X maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Apr2011 vid: 39 iid: 3 pid: 237 pub: Springer Nature artinfo: ui: 64881384 10.3758/s13421-010-0028-1 ppf: 527 ppct: 9 formats: fmt: @attributes: type: P size: 191KB tig: atl: Harry Potter and the sorcerer's scope: latent scope biases in explanatory reasoning. aug: au: Khemlani, Sangeet Sussman, Abigail Oppenheimer, Daniel affil: Department of Psychology, Princeton University, Princeton 08540 USA su: Analysis of variance Cognition Decision making Individuality Literature Problem solving Psycholinguistics Semantics Fantasy (Psychology) Human information processing Research funding Statistics Data analysis sug: subj: Analysis of variance Cognition Decision making Individuality Literature Problem solving Psycholinguistics Semantics Fantasy (Psychology) Human information processing Research funding Statistics Data analysis keyword: Causal reasoning Explanations Latent scope Causal reasoning Explanations Latent scope ab: What makes a good explanation? We examine the function of latent scope, i.e., the number of unobserved phenomena that an explanation can account for. We show that individuals prefer narrow latent scope explanations-those that account for fewer unobserved effects-to broader explanations. In Experiments 1a-d, participants found narrow latent scope explanations to be both more satisfying and more likely. In Experiment 2 we directly manipulated base rate information and again found a preference for narrow latent scope explanations. Participants in Experiment 3 evaluated more natural explanations of unexpected observations, and again displayed a bias for narrow latent scope explanations. We conclude by considering what this novel bias tells us about how humans evaluate explanations and engage in causal reasoning. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: N holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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