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Explanation and Understanding

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Keil, Frank C.·2006·Annual Review of Psychology
DOI 10.1146/annurev.psych.57.102904.190100PMC PMC3034737
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Abstract

The study of explanation, while related to intuitive theories, concepts, and mental models, offers important new perspectives on high-level thought. Explanations sort themselves into several distinct types corresponding to patterns of causation, content domains, and explanatory stances, all of which have cognitive consequences. Although explanations are necessarily incomplete—often dramatically so in laypeople—those gaps are difficult to discern. Despite such gaps and the failure to recognize them fully, people do have skeletal explanatory senses, often implicit, of the causal structure of the world. They further leverage those skeletal understandings by knowing how to access additional explanatory knowledge in other minds and by being particularly adept at using situational support to build explanations on the fly in real time. Across development and cultures, there are differences in preferred explanatory schemes, but rarely are any kinds of schemes completely unavailable to a group.

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  • Providing an explanation in the wrong way (explaining badly) might exacerbate the problem or make things worse.

    “This is problematic because providing an explanation in the wrong way might exacerbate the problem-for instance by demonstrating to people how very little sense they can make of certain decisions affecting them (Keil, 2006, p. 229).”

    From Hidden Risks: Artificial Intelligence and Hermeneutic Harm (2025) · cites this paper as Keil, 2006

    The Introduction (page unavailable in our copy) says explanations can fail when they omit essential details or provide too much, and that trying to explain can expose gaps in understanding. It does not establish the cited sentence’s specific example: that a poorly given explanation worsens a problem by showing people how little sense they can make of decisions affecting them. (LLM, conf=0.82)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

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Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Keil, F. C.
Affiliations
Yale University (US)
Corresponding author
Keil, Frank C.
ORCID
Keil, Frank C.
Venue
Annual Review of Psychology
Publisher
Annual Reviews
Published
2006-01-01
Volume
57
Issue
1
Pages
227-254
ISSN
  • 0066-4308 (ISSN-L)
  • 1545-2085
DOI
10.1146/annurev.psych.57.102904.190100
PMC
PMC3034737
OpenAlex
W2119858020
Cited by
1,350
References
9
Citations by year
2026: 27 · 2025: 35 · 2024: 53 · 2023: 41 · 2022: 35 · 2021: 72 · 2020: 65 · 2019: 76 · 2018: 59 · 2017: 73 · 2016: 66 · 2015: 72 · 2014: 85 · 2013: 75 · 2012: 79
FWCI
52.02
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Annual Review of Psychology (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
Funders
  • National Institutes of Health
  • Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (R37HD023922)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › History and Philosophy of Science › Philosophy and History of Science
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Child and Animal Learning Development
  • Social Sciences › Education › Science Education and Pedagogy
Keywords
explanation, understanding, causal reasoning, mental models, intuitive theories, explanatory knowledge, causal structure
MeSH terms
Affect, Cognition, Culture, Humans, Illusions, Logic, Psychological Theory, Verbal Behavior, Intuition

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