Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

Philosophers of science have long argued that when evaluating explanations, we do not consider ideas in isolation. Instead, we possess an integrated web of information that comprises the context we consider when weighing evidence about any component of this web. In this paper, we provide empirical evidence that theories are considered in context by demonstrating that non-scientists change the strength of their belief in both of two alternative theories, even when only given information about one of these hypotheses. In addition, we seek to identify and describe some of the types of information people use in evaluating theories. Information about mechanism, inferences that discriminate between two explanations, and information about closely related situations in which the target factor operates as a mechanism can all significantly affect ratings of two rival explanations.