Date of Award
Spring 2024
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
Psychology
First Advisor
Keil, Frank
Abstract
Imagine learning about a car engine for the first time. You might expect that the person explaining to you how a car engine works would first explain the role that the car engine has within the car (functional information) before diving into how the camshaft, pistons, spark plugs, cylinders, and crankshaft all work together to make the car engine work (mechanistic information). Where might this intuition that functional information should come before mechanistic information come from? Is mechanistic information too convoluted to be understood without function as a cognitive scaffold? This thesis considers the strength of this intuition of explanatory structure, its origins, its applications, and other inferences regarding function, mechanism, and the relation between them. I first describe the nature of adults’ intuitions regarding optimal explanatory structure for function and mechanism of complex entities. I then consider whether explaining according to adults’ preferences confers benefits unto learners either by improving learning outcomes or improving their experience while learning. Next, I investigate a broader range of adults’ intuitions about the epistemic and explanatory nature of function and mechanism. Finally, I consider through a series of learning studies the developmental origins of these intuitions, as well as how well these intuitions capture learning in adults and in children.
Recommended Citation
McCarthy, Amanda, "Exploring Function and Mechanism Through Intuitions, Explanations, & Learning" (2024). Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Dissertations. 1342.
https://elischolar.library.yale.edu/gsas_dissertations/1342
