Explanation and Abductive Inference

Everyday cognition reveals a sophisticated capacity to seek, generate, and evaluate explanations for the social and physical worlds around us. Why are we so driven to explain, and what accounts for our systematic explanatory preferences? This chapter reviews evidence from cognitive psychology and cognitive development concerning the structure and function of explanations, with a focus on the role of explanations in learning and inference. The findings highlight the value of understanding explanation and abductive inference both as phenomena in their own right and for the insights they provide concerning foundational aspects of human cognition, such as representation, learning, and inference.

[1]  James Sully.  Studies of Childhood , 1896 .

[2]  R. J. B..  The Child's Conception of the World , 1929, Nature.

[3]  K. J. Craik,et al.  The nature of explanation , 1944 .

[4]  C. Hempel,et al.  Studies in the Logic of Explanation , 1948, Philosophy of Science.

[5]  D. Berlyne.  A theory of human curiosity. , 1954, British journal of psychology.

[6]  F. Heider.  The psychology of interpersonal relations , 1958 .

[7]  A. Honoré,et al.  Causation in the law , 1960 .

[8]  C. Hempel,et al.  Aspects of Scientific Explanation and Other Essays in the Philosophy of Science. , 1966 .

[9]  M. Friedman.  Explanation and Scientific Understanding , 1974 .

[10]  Mark R. Lepper,et al.  Social explanation and social expectation: Effects of real and hypothetical explanations on subjective likelihood. , 1977 .

[11]  A. Müller.  The Cement of the Universe: A Study of Causation , 1977 .

[12]  D. Norman,et al.  To Ask a Question, One Must Know Enough to Know What Is Not Known. Report No. 7802. , 1978 .

[13]  L. Bloom,et al.  What, when, and how about why: a longitudinal study of early expressions of causality. , 1979, Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development.

[14]  T. Shultz.  Rules of Causal Attribution. , 1982 .

[15]  D E B Pollard.  Forms of Explanation: Rethinking the Questions in Social Theory , 1982 .

[16]  R. Weale.  Vision. A Computational Investigation Into the Human Representation and Processing of Visual Information. David Marr , 1983 .

[17]  J. Woodward,et al.  Scientific Explanation and the Causal Structure of the World , 1988 .

[18]  D. Medin,et al.  The role of theories in conceptual coherence. , 1985, Psychological review.

[19]  S. Carey.  Conceptual Change in Childhood , 1985 .

[20]  R. Hogarth,et al.  Judging probable cause. , 1986 .

[21]  C. Anderson,et al.  Effects of Explanation and Counter-Explanation on the Development and Use of Social Theories. , 1986 .

[22]  Michelene T. H. Chi,et al.  Self-Explanations: How Students Study and Use Examples in Learning To Solve Problems. Technical Report No. 9. , 1987 .

[23]  D. Dennett.  The Intentional Stance. , 1987 .

[24]  N. Pennington,et al.  Explanation-based decision making: effects of memory structure on judgment , 1988 .

[25]  Paul Thagard,et al.  Explanatory Coherence and Belief Revision in Naive Physics , 1988 .

[26]  Ann L. Brown,et al.  Preschool children can learn to transfer: Learning to learn and learning from example , 1988, Cognitive Psychology.

[27]  Victor Pambuccian,et al.  Simplicity , 1988, Notre Dame J. Formal Log..

[28]  L. Rips.  Similarity, typicality, and categorization , 1989 .

[29]  P. Kitcher.  Explanatory unification and the causal structure of the world , 1989 .

[30]  W. Salmon.  Four decades of scientific explanation , 1989 .

[31]  D. Hilton.  Conversational processes and causal explanation. , 1990 .

[32]  Yemima Ben-menahem.  The inference to the best explanation , 1990 .

[33]  I. Begg,et al.  Problem-oriented training promotes spontaneous analogical transfer: Memory-oriented training promotes memory for training , 1991, Memory & cognition.

[34]  Derek J. Koehler,et al.  Explanation, imagination, and confidence in judgment. , 1991, Psychological bulletin.

[35]  H. Wellman,et al.  Cognitive development: foundational theories of core domains. , 1992, Annual review of psychology.

[36]  L. Oakes,et al.  Preschoolers' questions and parents' explanations: Causal thinking in everyday activity. , 1992 .

[37]  R. Mooney,et al.  Schema acquisition from a single example , 1992 .

[38]  Simon Hooper.  Effects of Peer Interaction during Computer-Based Mathematics Instruction. , 1992 .

[39]  Frank C. Keil,et al.  The origins of an autonomous biology. , 1992 .

[40]  N. Pennington,et al.  Explaining the evidence: Tests of the Story Model for juror decision making. , 1992 .

[41]  S. Read,et al.  Explanatory coherence in social explanations : a parallel distributed processing account , 1993 .

[42]  N. Pennington,et al.  The story model for juror decision making , 1993 .

[43]  W. Baggett,et al.  Exploring information about concepts by asking questions , 1993 .

[44]  P. Thagard,et al.  Explanatory coherence , 1993 .

[45]  Paul D. Allopenna,et al.  The locus of knowledge effects in concept learning. , 1994, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.

[46]  Michelene T. H. Chi,et al.  Eliciting Self-Explanations Improves Understanding , 1994, Cogn. Sci..

[47]  E. Margolis.  The Significance of the Theory Analogy in the Psychological Study of Concepts , 1995 .

[48]  John A. Ross,et al.  Giving and Receiving Explanations in Cooperative Learning Groups , 1995 .

[49]  D. Medin,et al.  The role of covariation versus mechanism information in causal attribution , 1995, Cognition.

[50]  R. Siegler,et al.  How Does Change Occur: A Microgenetic Study of Number Conservation , 1995, Cognitive Psychology.

[51]  D. Hilton.  Mental Models and Causal Explanation: Judgements of Probable Cause and Explanatory Relevance , 1996 .

[52]  C. Anderson,et al.  Explanations: Processes and consequences. , 1996 .

[53]  W. Ahn,et al.  Causal Attribution as a Search for Underlying Mechanisms: An Explanation of the Conjunction Fallacy and the Discounting Principle , 1996, Cognitive Psychology.

[54]  B. Koslowski.  Theory and Evidence: The Development of Scientific Reasoning , 1996 .

[55]  A. Gopnik,et al.  Words, thoughts, and theories , 1997 .

[56]  P. Thagard,et al.  Probabilistic Networks and Explanatory Coherence. , 1997 .

[57]  Gerald DeJong,et al.  Explanation-Based Learning , 2014, Computing Handbook, 3rd ed..

[58]  W. Ahn.  Why are different features central for natural kinds and artifacts?: the role of causal status in determining feature centrality , 1998, Cognition.

[59]  Steven A. Sloman,et al.  Feature Centrality and Conceptual Coherence , 1998, Cogn. Sci..

[60]  D. Kelemen.  Function, goals and intention: children’s teleological reasoning about objects , 1999, Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

[61]  K. Crowley,et al.  Explanation and generalization in young children's strategy learning. , 1999, Child development.

[62]  Robyn M. Dawes,et al.  A message from psychologists to economists : mere predictability doesn ’ t matter like it should ( without a good story appended to it ) , 1999 .

[63]  Robert A. Wilson,et al.  Explanation and Cognition , 2000 .

[64]  M. Forster,et al.  Key Concepts in Model Selection: Performance and Generalizability. , 2000, Journal of mathematical psychology.

[65]  Lance J. Rips,et al.  Explanation and evidence in informal argument , 2000, Cogn. Sci..

[66]  Nancy S. Kim,et al.  The causal status effect in categorization: An overview , 2000 .

[67]  C. Anderson,et al.  Explanation, Cognitive Psychology of , 2001 .

[68]  D. Kuhn.  How do People Know? , 2001, Psychological science.

[69]  D. Povinelli,et al.  Do chimpanzees seek explanations? Preliminary comparative investigations. , 2001, Canadian journal of experimental psychology = Revue canadienne de psychologie experimentale.

[70]  H. Wellman,et al.  The emergence of children's causal explanations and theories: evidence from everyday conversation. , 2001, Developmental psychology.

[71]  L. Magnani.  Abduction, Reason, and Science. Process of Discovery and Explanation , 2001 .

[72]  Leonid Rozenblit,et al.  The misunderstood limits of folk science: an illusion of explanatory depth , 2002, Cogn. Sci..

[73]  W. Ahn,et al.  Effect of theory-based feature correlations on typicality judgments , 2002, Memory & cognition.

[74]  J. D. Trout.  Scientific Explanation And The Sense Of Understanding* , 2002, Philosophy of Science.

[75]  Lance J. Rips,et al.  Circular reasoning , 2002, Cogn. Sci..

[76]  H. Putnam.  Philosophy and our Mental Life , 2002 .

[77]  R. Siegler.  Microgenetic Studies of Self-Explanation , 2002 .

[78]  W. Ahn,et al.  Understanding behavior makes it more normal , 2003, Psychonomic bulletin & review.

[79]  Wayne C. Myrvold,et al.  A Bayesian Account of the Virtue of Unification , 2003, Philosophy of Science.

[80]  F. Keil.  Folkscience: coarse interpretations of a complex reality , 2003, Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

[81]  V. Slaughter,et al.  Opening windows into the mind: mothers’ preferences for mental state explanations and children’s theory of mind , 2003 .

[82]  B. Malle.  How the Mind Explains Behavior: Folk Explanations, Meaning, and Social Interaction , 2004 .

[83]  Kevin T. Kelly.  Justification as Truth-Finding Efficiency: How Ockham's Razor Works , 2004, Minds and Machines.

[84]  R. Baillargeon.  Infants' Physical World , 2004 .

[85]  D. Hilton.  Knowledge-Based Causal Attribution : The Abnormal Conditions Focus Model , 2004 .

[86]  P. Johnson-Laird,et al.  Reasoning from inconsistency to consistency. , 2004, Psychological review.

[87]  Frank C Keil,et al.  Journal of Experimental , 2003 .

[88]  M. Strevens.  Scientific Explanation , 2005 .

[89]  Anat Yarden,et al.  Characterizing children’s spontaneous interests in science and technology , 2005 .

[90]  Yair Neuman,et al.  Pupils' evaluation and generation of evidence and explanation in argumentation. , 2005, The British journal of educational psychology.

[91]  N. Epley,et al.  Explanations Versus Applications , 2005, Psychological science.

[92]  Noah D. Goodman,et al.  Intuitive Theories of Mind: A Rational Approach to False Belief , 2005 .

[93]  Peter Railton,et al.  Probability, explanation, and information , 1981, Synthese.

[94]  Paul Thagard,et al.  Evaluating Explanations in Law, Science, and Everyday Life , 2006 .

[95]  H. Wellman,et al.  Theories of Mind in Transition: A Microgenetic Study of the Development of False Belief Understanding , 2006 .

[96]  Frank C Keil,et al.  What Do Children Want to Know About Animals and Artifacts? , 2006, Psychological science.

[97]  L. Darden.  Reasoning In Biological Discoveries , 2006 .

[98]  Bob Rehder,et al.  When similarity and causality compete in category-based property generalization , 2006, Memory & cognition.

[99]  B. Ross,et al.  The importance of being coherent: Category coherence, cross-classification, and reasoning , 2006 .

[100]  T. Lombrozo.  The structure and function of explanations , 2006, Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

[101]  Andrew Shtulman,et al.  Qualitative differences between naïve and scientific theories of evolution , 2006, Cognitive Psychology.

[102]  S. Carey,et al.  Functional explanation and the function of explanation , 2006, Cognition.

[103]  B. Rittle-Johnson,et al.  Promoting transfer: effects of self-explanation and direct instruction. , 2006, Child development.

[104]  Sandeep Prasada,et al.  Principled and statistical connections in common sense conception , 2006, Cognition.

[105]  F. Keil,et al.  Explanation and understanding , 2015 .

[106]  W. Bechtel.  Mental Mechanisms: Philosophical Perspectives on Cognitive Neuroscience , 2007 .

[107]  Tania Lombrozo,et al.  Evidence of a Preference for Teleological Explanations in Patients With Alzheimer’s Disease , 2007 .

[108]  Michael M Chouinard.  Children's questions: a mechanism for cognitive development. , 2007, Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development.

[109]  H. Wellman,et al.  Causal Reasoning as Informed by the Early Development of Explanations , 2007 .

[110]  Keith A. Markus,et al.  Making Things Happen: A Theory of Causal Explanation , 2007 .

[111]  C. Craver.  Explaining the Brain: Mechanisms and the Mosaic Unity of Neuroscience , 2007 .

[112]  T. Lombrozo,et al.  Simplicity and probability in causal explanation , 2007, Cognitive Psychology.

[113]  J. D. Trout.  Seduction without cause: uncovering explanatory neurophilia , 2008, Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

[114]  F. Keil,et al.  Children's sensitivity to circular explanations. , 2008, Journal of experimental child psychology.

[115]  Jörg Wittwer,et al.  Why Instructional Explanations Often Do Not Work: A Framework for Understanding the Effectiveness of Instructional Explanations , 2008 .

[116]  Rod D. Roscoe,et al.  Tutor learning: the role of explaining and responding to questions , 2008 .

[117]  Jörg Wittwer,et al.  Is underestimation less detrimental than overestimation? The impact of experts’ beliefs about a layperson’s knowledge on learning and question asking , 2008 .

[118]  Steven A. Sloman.  Reasoning: When Explanations Compete: The Role of Explanatory Coherence on Judgments of Likelihood , 2008 .

[119]  D. Kelemen,et al.  Developmental Continuity in Teleo-Functional Explanation: Reasoning about Nature Among Romanian Romani Adults , 2008 .

[120]  A. Yuille,et al.  Bayesian generic priors for causal learning. , 2008, Psychological review.

[121]  M. Strevens.  Depth: An Account of Scientific Explanation , 2008 .

[122]  Deena Skolnick Weisberg,et al.  The Seductive Allure of Neuroscience Explanations , 2008, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

[123]  D. Kuhn,et al.  Are self-explanations always beneficial? , 2009, Journal of experimental child psychology.

[124]  H. Wellman,et al.  Evidence for an explanation advantage in naïve biological reasoning , 2009, Cognitive Psychology.

[125]  Sandeep Prasada,et al.  Representation of Principled Connections: A Window Onto the Formal Aspect of Common Sense Conception , 2009, Cogn. Sci..

[126]  H. Wellman,et al.  Preschoolers' search for explanatory information within adult-child conversation. , 2009, Child development.

[127]  T. Lombrozo.  Explanation and categorization: How “why?” informs “what?” , 2009, Cognition.

[128]  Michelene T. H. Chi,et al.  Active-Constructive-Interactive: A Conceptual Framework for Differentiating Learning Activities , 2009, Top. Cogn. Sci..

[129]  D. Kelemen,et al.  The Human Function Compunction: Teleological explanation in adults , 2009, Cognition.

[130]  E. Machery.  Doing without Concepts , 2009 .

[131]  Seth Chin-Parker,et al.  Background shifts affect explanatory style: how a pragmatic theory of explanation accounts for background effects in the generation of explanations , 2010, Cognitive Processing.

[132]  M. Chi,et al.  Instruction Based on Self-Explanation , 2010 .

[133]  H. Wellman,et al.  Inconsistency with prior knowledge triggers children's causal explanatory reasoning. , 2010, Child development.

[134]  T. Lombrozo.  From conceptual representations to explanatory relations , 2010, Behavioral and Brain Sciences.

[135]  Joseph Jay Williams,et al.  The role of explanation in discovery and generalization: evidence from category learning , 2010, ICLS.

[136]  T. Lombrozo.  Causal–explanatory pluralism: How intentions, functions, and mechanisms influence causal ascriptions , 2010, Cognitive Psychology.

[137]  J. J. Williams,et al.  Why does explaining help learning? Insight from an explanation impairment effect , 2010 .

[138]  Daniel Heussen,et al.  When functions and causes compete , 2010 .

[139]  H. Wellman.  Reinvigorating Explanations for the Study of Early Cognitive Development , 2011 .

[140]  Mieke Bal,et al.  CHARLES SANDERS PEIRCE: , 2019, Charles Peirce's Theory of Scientific Method.