Structure-function fit underlies the evaluation of teleological explanations

Liquin, Emily; Lombrozo, Tania

doi:10.1016/j.cogpsych.2018.09.001

Cited by 27 publications

(64 citation statements)

References 45 publications

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“…Also, although parents may not show a preference for explaining the natural world by referencing teleological goals (e.g., by describing giraffes as having long necks so that they can eat the leaves on tall trees; Kelemen et al, 2005), adults do show persistent biases to endorse teleological explanations for the natural world (Kelemen & Rosset, 2009), which their children might pick up on in more subtle ways. Adults may also be more likely to rely on teleological explanations—which are inherently normative—in explicitly pedagogical contexts, in part because these types of explanations are often deemed more informative (Liquin & Lombrozo, 2018; Lombrozo, 2010; Lombrozo & Rehder, 2012). Many children in Western educated communities (including those represented in the current sample) learn about the biological world predominantly through the testimony of others, such as children’s books and other media, which might emphasize idealized representatives of animal categories.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Developmental Changes in Strategies for Gathering Evidence About Biological Kinds

et al. 2020

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How do people gather samples of evidence to learn about the world? Adults often prefer to sample evidence from diverse sources-for example, choosing to test a robin and a turkey to find out if something is true of birds in general. Children below age 9, however, often do not consider sample diversity, instead treating non-diverse samples (e.g., two robins) and diverse samples as equivalently informative. The current study (N = 247) found that this discontinuity stems from developmental changes in standards for evaluating evidence-younger children chose to learn from samples that best approximate idealized views of what category members are supposed to be like (e.g., the fastest cheetahs), with a gradual shift across age toward samples that cover more within-category variation (e.g., cheetahs of varying speeds). These findings have implications for the relation between conceptual structure and inductive reasoning, and for the mechanisms underlying inductive reasoning more generally. Emily Foster-Hanson and Kelsey Moty are joint first authors. E. Foster-Hanson et al. / Cognitive Science 44 (2020) 3 of 23 E. Foster-Hanson et al. / Cognitive Science 44 (2020) 5 of 23 E. Foster-Hanson et al. / Cognitive Science 44 (2020) 7 of 23 E. Foster-Hanson et al. / Cognitive Science 44 (2020) 9 of 23

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Developmental Changes in Strategies for Gathering Evidence About Biological Kinds

et al. 2020

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“…Also, although parents may not show a preference for explaining the natural world by referencing teleological goals (e.g., by describing giraffes as having long necks so that they can eat the leaves on tall trees; Kelemen, Callanan, Casler, & Perez-Granados, 2005), adults do show persistent biases to endorse teleological explanations for the natural world (Kelemen & Rosset, 2009), which their children might pick up on in more subtle ways. Adults may also be more likely to rely on teleological explanations-which are inherently normative-in explicitly pedagogical contexts, in part because these types of explanations are often deemed more informative (Liquin & Lombrozo, 2018;Lombrozo, 2010;Lombrozo & Rehder, 2012). Many children in Western educated communities (including those represented in the current sample) learn about the biological world predominantly through the testimony of others, such as children's books and other media, which might emphasize idealized representatives of animal categories.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Developmental changes in strategies for gathering evidence about biological kinds

Foster‐Hanson¹,

Moty²,

Cardarelli³

et al. 2019

Preprint

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How do people gather samples of evidence to learn about the world? Adults often prefer to sample evidence from diverse sources—for example, choosing to test a robin and a turkey to find out if something is true of birds in general. Children below age 9, however, often do not consider sample diversity, instead treating non-diverse samples (e.g., two robins) and diverse samples as equivalently informative. The current study (N = 247) found that this discontinuity stems from developmental changes in standards for evaluating evidence—younger children chose to learn from exemplars that best approximate idealized views of what category members are supposed to be like (e.g., the fastest cheetahs), with a gradual shift across age towards samples that cover more within-category variation (e.g., cheetahs of varying speeds). Implications for the relation between conceptual structure and inductive reasoning, and for the mechanisms underlying inductive reasoning more generally, will be discussed.

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“…Most adults, for instance, tend to accept teleological explanations about parts of animals (Kelemen, 1999). Endorsement of these explanations is interpretable without design, and may be compatible with a folk understanding of evolution via natural selection (Liquin & Lombrozo, 2018;Lombrozo & Carey, 2006; see also Lennox, 1993). Under speeded conditions, however, adults also accept teleological explanations about non-living natural kinds, such as lightning or the sun (Kelemen et al, 2013;Kelemen & Rosset, 2009).…”

Section: What Is Teleological Explanation?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Another factor that influences evaluations of both teleology and teleological explanations is an object's ability to succeed at a function (Rose & Schaffer, 2017;Chaigneau et al, 2007;Liquin & Lombrozo, 2018). For instance, people seem more receptive to an object's new purpose if it was bad at its original purpose: An umbrella-turned-lampshade is more likely thought of as a lampshade if it was a poor umbrella to begin with (Rose & Schaffer, 2017).…”

Section: Experiments 3: Success At a Functionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…One natural view would be that the way that people ordinarily determine whether something has a telos is closely tied to the way they determine whether it has a teleological explanation. Given rich existing knowledge about the conditions under which people accept teleological explanations (e.g., Banerjee & Bloom, 2014;Kelemen et al, 2013;Liquin & Lombrozo, 2018;Lombrozo & Carey, 2006), on this view we can simply leverage that knowledge to understand the conditions under which people will think that an object has a specific telos. In contrast, however, another possibility is that attributing a telos to something Teleology Beyond Explanation p. 4 may come apart from attributing a teleological explanation.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Teleology Beyond Explanation

Joo¹,

Yousif²,

Knobe³

2020

Preprint

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What do we mean when we say something is for a given purpose? Teleology (i.e., something’s purpose) is often associated with teleological explanation (i.e., an explanation referring to that purpose). For instance, a knife may be for cutting things precisely because its existence can be explained by that purpose. But do people ascribe a telos to an object only if they think that object has a teleological explanation? Experiment 1 examined cases where an object was designed for one purpose but is now widely used for a different purpose, and found that teleology judgments and teleological explanation judgments are dissociable: Only an artifact’s original purpose could serve as an explanation, but its new purpose could also be its telos. Experiments 2-3 identified three factors that influence teleology judgments other than intentional design: present use (i.e., how a community is currently using the artifact), collective recognition (i.e., how a community together characterizes the artifact) and success at a function (i.e., how well the artifact can perform its purpose). Finally, Experiment 4 identified one factor that (perhaps unexpectedly) did not affect teleology judgments. In contrast to its role in teleological explanation, structure- function fit did not impact teleology judgments. Implications for work on object teleology and interpretations of teleological reasoning more generally are discussed.

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Structure-function fit underlies the evaluation of teleological explanations

Cited by 27 publications

References 45 publications

Developmental Changes in Strategies for Gathering Evidence About Biological Kinds

Developmental Changes in Strategies for Gathering Evidence About Biological Kinds

Developmental changes in strategies for gathering evidence about biological kinds

Teleology Beyond Explanation

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