

The illusion of explanatory depth - gmays
http://www.yale.edu/cogdevlab/aarticles/IOED%20proofs.pdf%201.pdf

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gmays
Abstract: People feel they understand complex phenomena with far greater
precision, coherence, and depth than they really do; they are subject to an
illusion—an illusion of explanatory depth. The illusion is far stronger for
explanatory knowledge than many other kinds of knowledge, such as that for
facts, procedures or narratives. The illusion for explanatory knowledge is
most robust where the environment supports real-time explanations with visible
mechanisms. We demonstrate the illusion of depth with explanatory knowledge in
Studies 1–6. Then we show differences in overconfidence about knowledge across
different knowledge domains in Studies 7–10. Finally, we explore the
mechanisms behind the initial confidence and behind overconfidence in Studies
11 and 12. Implications for the roles of intuitive theories in models of
concepts and cognition are discussed.

