{"pk":28051,"title":"Seeking Ideal Explanations in a Non-Ideal World","subtitle":null,"abstract":"Research has found that when children or adults attemptto explain novel observations in the course of learning,they are more likely to discover patterns that support idealexplanations: explanations that are maximally simple andbroad. However, not all learning contexts support suchexplanations. Can explaining facilitate discoverynonetheless? We present a study in which participantswere tasked with discovering a rule governing theclassification of items, where the items were consistenttwo non-ideal rules: one correctly classified 66% of cases,the other 83%. We find that when there is no ideal rule tobe discovered (i.e., no 100% rule), participants promptedto explain are better than control participants atdiscovering the best available rule (i.e., the 83% rule).This supports the idea that seeking ideal explanations canbe beneficial in a non-ideal world because the pursuit ofan ideal explanation can facilitate the discovery ofimperfect patterns along the way.","language":"eng","license":{"name":"","short_name":"","text":null,"url":""},"keywords":[{"word":"explanation; learning; scientific practice"}],"section":"Publication-based-Talks","is_remote":true,"remote_url":"https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9ws1p8q8","frozenauthors":[{"first_name":"Elizabeth","middle_name":"","last_name":"Kon","name_suffix":"","institution":"UC Berkley","department":""},{"first_name":"Tania","middle_name":"","last_name":"Lombrozo","name_suffix":"","institution":"UC Berkley","department":""}],"date_submitted":null,"date_accepted":null,"date_published":"2018-01-01T18:00:00Z","render_galley":null,"galleys":[{"label":"PDF","type":"pdf","path":"https://journalpub.escholarship.org/cognitivesciencesociety/article/28051/galley/17690/download/"}]}