Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

When someone realizes they do not actually know how a can opener works, do they think it is just a one-time bout of overconfidence? Or, do they assume they lack understanding of all the devices in their home? Causal knowledge is a fundamental part of both daily functioning and long-term learning. Previous studies have shown that writing out a causal explanation has the ability to induce knowledge reassessment and decrease inflated perceptions of knowledge specific to the concept being explained. However, the generalization of this knowledge reassessment has only recently been explored. In this preregistered experiment, we used the Illusion of Explanatory Depth (IOED) paradigm to see whether a decrease in perceived understanding of an explained item affects the perceived understanding of an item that was not asked to be explained. We also assessed the effect of explanation quality on this transfer of knowledge. Results showed that knowledge reassessment for explained items led to an even greater reassessment for unexplained items, suggesting possible overgeneralization. While explanation quality influenced knowledge reassessment for explained items, it did not for unexplained items. We discuss the possible reasons for these results as well as future studies to help understand the boundaries of knowledge reassessment.