@inproceedings{77e4bba6b1fe41b39d44bfde1e364d46,
title = "Effects of Explaining Anomalies on the Generation and Evaluation of Hypotheses",
abstract = "We investigate the effects of explaining anomalies (i.e., observations that conflict with current beliefs) on belief revision, and in particular how explaining contributes to the rejection of incorrect hypotheses, the generation of alternative hypotheses, and the selection of a hypothesis that can account for anomalous observations. Participants learned how to rank students across courses using statistical concepts of deviation, and did so while either explaining sample rankings or writing their thoughts during study. We additionally varied whether or not candidate hypotheses about the basis for ranking were presented to participants prior to learning, and the number of sample rankings that violated intuitive misconceptions about ranking. Measures of learning and coded responses suggest that prompting people to explain can increase the rate at which they entertain both correct and incorrect hypotheses, but that explaining promotes the selection of a hypothesis that can account for anomalous observations.",
keywords = "anomalies, explanation, generalization, learning, misconceptions, self-explanation, statistics",
author = "Williams, {Joseph Jay} and Walker, {Caren M.} and Maldonado, {Samuel G.} and Tania Lombrozo",
note = "Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} CogSci 2013.All rights reserved.; 35th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society - Cooperative Minds: Social Interaction and Group Dynamics, CogSci 2013 ; Conference date: 31-07-2013 Through 03-08-2013",
year = "2013",
language = "English (US)",
series = "Cooperative Minds: Social Interaction and Group Dynamics - Proceedings of the 35th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, CogSci 2013",
publisher = "The Cognitive Science Society",
pages = "3777--3782",
editor = "Markus Knauff and Natalie Sebanz and Michael Pauen and Ipke Wachsmuth",
booktitle = "Cooperative Minds",
}