Biologists, lay adults, and children alike value causal explanations of how biological entities work. Despite this, elementary school science education has historically lacked mechanistic content. In line with recent science education standards, we investigated the effects of mechanistic learning goals on understanding of an in-depth lesson about how the heart works. Children ages 6 to 11 who were given mechanistic learning goals performed better on knowledge assessments of the heart lesson and enjoyed their learning goal more than children who were given a relatively superficial learning goal—to focus on labels. Thus, learning goals orienting children towards mechanistic content during lessons enhance science learning and enjoyment.

People generally prefer functional explanations over mechanistic ones. Why? One possibility is that people value functional information more. But another possibility is that people don't have an overall preference for functional explanations; Instead, people might just expect this information to precede mechanistic information. Here, we ask whether people have preferences for the order of functional and mechanistic information in explanations. In a first set of studies, we show that adults do in fact prefer that functional information precedes mechanistic. In a second set of studies, we show that people have a more general preference for explanations to address the whole before parts. Finally, we show that the preference for function to precede mechanism may be related to the broader whole-before-parts preference.

The law of product liability starts with the idea that a product should safely perform the function that it is for: a plaintiff can recover if she used the product for its intended purpose, but perhaps not if she misused the product. Previous work in psychology has suggested that people reason about artifacts in terms of their purpose. Yet, no work has tested the effect of misuse on judgment and decision-making, in particular in the context of product liability, or creator accountability. Two studies (N = 280, N = 282) show a robust effect of misuse on liability judgments, such that people are less likely to blame the creator in the case of misuse (vs. normal use). Additionally, both studies show a consistent pattern with regard to the role of individual differences in narrow teleology. When a product is misused, individual differences in teleology are strongly associated with liability judgments, but there is no such association when the product is used normally. This asymmetry suggests that judgments of misuse may be best explained in terms of what objects are for.

Learning frequently forces us to rely on the good judgment and epistemic vigilance of sources with no more firsthand knowledge of a topic than ourselves, but who may have more second or third- hand knowledge. Yet, being forced to rely on their judgment doesn’t prevent us from evaluating their judgment: one might trust information because it was passed on to you by someone whose epistemic vigilance you trust, but reject it from someone whom you believe lacks good judgment. We present two experiments suggest that by integrating affective cues like anger and surprise along with perceptual access and consensus, children infer what others believe and what the correct answer to a question is. We discuss implications for consensus-based social learning strategies.

Communication in groups allows social learners to influence one another and change their beliefs over time. Though some of the same heuristics that guide learners’ trust in individual informants can be applied to groups, variation in how individual beliefs are aggregated into a collective judgement can radically alter the accuracy of collective judgement. How do observers evaluate collective judgements? We present two experiments testing the impact of affective signals on observer trust. In each experiment, one faction “converts” group members from an opposing faction, or is converted by them. When the focal faction is surprised at the opposing view, observer trust in the focal faction’s belief rises or falls as consensus increases or decreases. When the focal faction is angry, observer trust falls when consensus decreases, but does not rise even when the “consensus” approaches unanimity. Affective signals in group interactions may help naive learners evaluate collective accuracy.

Conceptual change is generally proposed to occur In one of three ways: 1. constant evolution of new conceptual structures out of older ones such that all traces of the original may eventually disappear. 2. creation of new concepts out of old ones wherein the old remain Intact, and 3. emergence of new concepts from preconceptual states via general learning procedures. The actual incidence of these kinds of change, however, may be overestimated at the expense of two other patterns of cognitive development. One type involves changing access to already present explanatory systems, often through a reframlng of what properties and relations are considered most relevant. Whether to call this process conceptual change is controversial, as the basic systems of explanation may be constant throughout. The other type Involves a range of mechanisms that are not conceptual change in any normal sense of the word. but rather increasing accretion and/or differentiation of knowledge within a highly stable and regular conceptual structure. Not surprisingly, details of all these views depend greatly on models of what concepts actually are; and a particular view of concepts and its Implications Is discussed. These Issues are explored with examples from the realm of biological thought.

What makes an explanation seem insightful? Prior work shows that even circular explanations can seem insightful when they include information from a lower level of explanation (reductive information). Here, we suggest that this impression of insight is not an illusion. Rather, circular explanations with reductive information are pragmatically instructive: they suggest at which level of description the phenomenon should be explained. In Study 1, even single-sentence circular explanations appeared insightful when infused with reductive information. In Study 2, rating circular explanations with reductive information as insightful correlated with rating them as helpful both with searching for explanatory information and with narrowing down which mechanisms an explanation should address. Study 2 also provides preliminary evidence that these ratings were not driven by prior knowledge of these circular explanations' explicit propositional content.