Jim Davies: Publications

Schoenherr, J., Thomson, R. &, Davies, J. (2011). What makes an explanation believable?: Mechanistic and anthropomorphic explanations of natural phenomena. The Thirty-Third Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society (COGSCI-11), 1424--1429.

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People tend to prefer mechanistic explanations to anthropomorphic explanations.

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BibTex Entry:

@InProceedings{SchoenherrThomsonDavies2011,
	author = {Schoenherr, Jordan, and Thomson, Robert, and Davies, Jim},
	title = {Expanding the Space of Cognitive Science: Proceedings of the 33rdAnnual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society},
	pages = {1424-1429},
	year = {2011},
	address= {Boston, MA}
}

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Abstract

Many biases in decision-making and reasoning are a result of ignoring logical rules and relevant information while focusing on irrelevant cues present within an argument. In the present study we examine explanatory schemata – a set of interrelated concepts - that are deemed relevant to participants. Participants were first trained in a syllogistic reasoning task and were then presented descriptions of natural phenomena and explanations. An instructional manipulation varied the source of the explanations (scientists or people) as well as the animacy of the natural phenomena (living or nonliving). Explanations used either mechanistic (e.g., force) or anthropomorphic (e.g., wants) terms. We found that participants were more accurate when assessing mechanistic explanations.

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JimDavies ( jim@jimdavies.org )