Tania Lombrozo | University of California, Berkeley (original) (raw)

Papers by Tania Lombrozo

Proceedings of the 33rd Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society

Children’s and adults’ attempts to explain the world around them plays a key role in promoting ... more Children’s and adults’ attempts to explain the world around
them plays a key role in promoting learning and understanding,
but little is known about how and why explaining has this
effect. An experiment investigated explaining in the social
context of learning to predict and explain individuals’ behavior,
examining if explaining observations exerts a selective
constraint to seek patterns or regularities underlying the
observations, regardless of whether such patterns are harmful or
helpful for learning. When there were reliable patterns– such as
personality types that predict charitable behavior– explaining
promoted learning. But when these patterns were misleading,
explaining produced an impairment whereby participants
exhibited less accurate learning and prediction of individuals’
behavior. This novel approach of contrasting explanation’s
positive and negative effects suggests that explanation’s
benefits are not merely due to increased motivation, attention or
time, and that explaining may undermine learning in domains
where regularities are absent, spurious, or unreliable.

Proceedings of the 32nd …, Jan 1, 2010

A great deal of research has demonstrated that learning is influenced by the learner’s prior ba... more A great deal of research has demonstrated that learning is
influenced by the learner’s prior background knowledge (e.g.
Murphy, 2002; Keil, 1990), but little is known about the processes
by which prior knowledge is deployed. We explore the role of
explanation in deploying prior knowledge by examining the joint
effects of eliciting explanations and providing prior knowledge in a
task where each should aid learning. Three hypotheses are
considered: that explanation and prior knowledge have
independent and additive effects on learning, that their joint effects on learning are subadditive, and that their effects are superadditive. A category learning experiment finds evidence for a superadditive effect: explaining drives the discovery of regularities, while prior knowledge constrains which regularities learners discover. This is consistent with an account of explanation’s effects on learning proposed in Williams & Lombrozo (in press).

palm.mindmodeling.org

In two studies, we examine how prompting 5-and 6-year-olds to explain observed outcomes influence... more In two studies, we examine how prompting 5-and 6-year-olds to explain observed outcomes influences causal learning. In Study 1, children were presented with data consistent with two causal regularities. Explainers outperformed controls in generalizing the regularity that accounted for more observations. In Study 2, this regularity was pitted against an alternative that accounted for fewer observations but was consistent with prior knowledge. Explainers were less likely than controls to generalize the regularity that accounted for more observations. These findings suggest that explaining drives children to favor causal regularities that they expect to generalize, where current observations and prior knowledge both provide cues.

"Research in education and cognitive development suggests that explaining plays a key role in lea... more "Research in education and cognitive development suggests that explaining plays a key role in learning and generalization: When learners provide explanations—even to themselves—they learn
more effectively and generalize more readily to novel situations. This paper proposes and tests a subsumptive constraints account of this effect. Motivated by philosophical theories of explanation, this account predicts that explaining guides learners to interpret what they are learning in terms of unifying patterns or regularities, which promotes the discovery of broad generalizations. Three experiments provide evidence for the subsumptive constraints account: prompting participants to explain while learning artificial categories promotes the induction of a broad generalization underlying category membership, relative to describing items (Exp. 1), thinking aloud (Exp. 2), or free study (Exp. 3). Although explaining facilitates discovery, Experiment 1 finds that description is more beneficial for learning item details. Experiment 2 additionally suggests that explaining anomalous observations may play a special role in belief revision. The findings provide insight into explanation’s role in discovery and generalization."

The significant role of explanation in learning and generalization is ubiquitous and well documen... more The significant role of explanation in learning and generalization is ubiquitous and well documented: explanation promotes student learning in educational settings, drives conceptual development in young children, is accorded a central role in theories of conceptual representation, and has a long history in artificial intelligence. Despite this, relatively little is known about the precise mechanisms that underlie explanation's effects, and there is a paucity of discourse between the disciplines of cognitive science that study explanation. This interdisciplinary symposium brings together key researchers from education, development, cognitive psychology and computer science to synthesize the progress from these disciplines, forging connections between ongoing research programs to identify promising future directions.

Abstract 1. Seeking explanations is central to science, education, and everyday thinking, and pro... more Abstract 1. Seeking explanations is central to science, education, and everyday thinking, and prompting learners to explain is often beneficial. Nonetheless, in 2 category learning experiments across artifact and social domains, we demonstrate that the very properties of explanation that support learning can impair learning by fostering overgeneralizations. We find that explaining encourages learners to seek broad patterns, hindering learning when patterns involve exceptions.

Proceedings of the 34th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society. Austin, TX: Cognitive Science Society, 2012

In two studies, we examine how prompting 5-and 6-year-olds to explain observed outcomes influence... more In two studies, we examine how prompting 5-and 6-year-olds to explain observed outcomes influences causal learning. In Study 1, children were presented with data consistent with two causal regularities. Explainers outperformed controls in generalizing the regularity that accounted for more observations. In Study 2, this regularity was pitted against an alternative that accounted for fewer observations but was consistent with prior knowledge. Explainers were less likely than controls to generalize the regularity that ...

We evaluate four computational models of explanation in Bayesian networks by comparing model pred... more We evaluate four computational models of explanation in Bayesian networks by comparing model predictions to human judgments.

Proceedings of the 33rd Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society

Children’s and adults’ attempts to explain the world around them plays a key role in promoting ... more Children’s and adults’ attempts to explain the world around
them plays a key role in promoting learning and understanding,
but little is known about how and why explaining has this
effect. An experiment investigated explaining in the social
context of learning to predict and explain individuals’ behavior,
examining if explaining observations exerts a selective
constraint to seek patterns or regularities underlying the
observations, regardless of whether such patterns are harmful or
helpful for learning. When there were reliable patterns– such as
personality types that predict charitable behavior– explaining
promoted learning. But when these patterns were misleading,
explaining produced an impairment whereby participants
exhibited less accurate learning and prediction of individuals’
behavior. This novel approach of contrasting explanation’s
positive and negative effects suggests that explanation’s
benefits are not merely due to increased motivation, attention or
time, and that explaining may undermine learning in domains
where regularities are absent, spurious, or unreliable.

Proceedings of the 32nd …, Jan 1, 2010

A great deal of research has demonstrated that learning is influenced by the learner’s prior ba... more A great deal of research has demonstrated that learning is
influenced by the learner’s prior background knowledge (e.g.
Murphy, 2002; Keil, 1990), but little is known about the processes
by which prior knowledge is deployed. We explore the role of
explanation in deploying prior knowledge by examining the joint
effects of eliciting explanations and providing prior knowledge in a
task where each should aid learning. Three hypotheses are
considered: that explanation and prior knowledge have
independent and additive effects on learning, that their joint effects on learning are subadditive, and that their effects are superadditive. A category learning experiment finds evidence for a superadditive effect: explaining drives the discovery of regularities, while prior knowledge constrains which regularities learners discover. This is consistent with an account of explanation’s effects on learning proposed in Williams & Lombrozo (in press).

palm.mindmodeling.org

In two studies, we examine how prompting 5-and 6-year-olds to explain observed outcomes influence... more In two studies, we examine how prompting 5-and 6-year-olds to explain observed outcomes influences causal learning. In Study 1, children were presented with data consistent with two causal regularities. Explainers outperformed controls in generalizing the regularity that accounted for more observations. In Study 2, this regularity was pitted against an alternative that accounted for fewer observations but was consistent with prior knowledge. Explainers were less likely than controls to generalize the regularity that accounted for more observations. These findings suggest that explaining drives children to favor causal regularities that they expect to generalize, where current observations and prior knowledge both provide cues.

"Research in education and cognitive development suggests that explaining plays a key role in lea... more "Research in education and cognitive development suggests that explaining plays a key role in learning and generalization: When learners provide explanations—even to themselves—they learn
more effectively and generalize more readily to novel situations. This paper proposes and tests a subsumptive constraints account of this effect. Motivated by philosophical theories of explanation, this account predicts that explaining guides learners to interpret what they are learning in terms of unifying patterns or regularities, which promotes the discovery of broad generalizations. Three experiments provide evidence for the subsumptive constraints account: prompting participants to explain while learning artificial categories promotes the induction of a broad generalization underlying category membership, relative to describing items (Exp. 1), thinking aloud (Exp. 2), or free study (Exp. 3). Although explaining facilitates discovery, Experiment 1 finds that description is more beneficial for learning item details. Experiment 2 additionally suggests that explaining anomalous observations may play a special role in belief revision. The findings provide insight into explanation’s role in discovery and generalization."

The significant role of explanation in learning and generalization is ubiquitous and well documen... more The significant role of explanation in learning and generalization is ubiquitous and well documented: explanation promotes student learning in educational settings, drives conceptual development in young children, is accorded a central role in theories of conceptual representation, and has a long history in artificial intelligence. Despite this, relatively little is known about the precise mechanisms that underlie explanation's effects, and there is a paucity of discourse between the disciplines of cognitive science that study explanation. This interdisciplinary symposium brings together key researchers from education, development, cognitive psychology and computer science to synthesize the progress from these disciplines, forging connections between ongoing research programs to identify promising future directions.

Abstract 1. Seeking explanations is central to science, education, and everyday thinking, and pro... more Abstract 1. Seeking explanations is central to science, education, and everyday thinking, and prompting learners to explain is often beneficial. Nonetheless, in 2 category learning experiments across artifact and social domains, we demonstrate that the very properties of explanation that support learning can impair learning by fostering overgeneralizations. We find that explaining encourages learners to seek broad patterns, hindering learning when patterns involve exceptions.

Proceedings of the 34th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society. Austin, TX: Cognitive Science Society, 2012

In two studies, we examine how prompting 5-and 6-year-olds to explain observed outcomes influence... more In two studies, we examine how prompting 5-and 6-year-olds to explain observed outcomes influences causal learning. In Study 1, children were presented with data consistent with two causal regularities. Explainers outperformed controls in generalizing the regularity that accounted for more observations. In Study 2, this regularity was pitted against an alternative that accounted for fewer observations but was consistent with prior knowledge. Explainers were less likely than controls to generalize the regularity that ...

We evaluate four computational models of explanation in Bayesian networks by comparing model pred... more We evaluate four computational models of explanation in Bayesian networks by comparing model predictions to human judgments.