Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

Explanations are social, and when people try to explain something, they usually seek input from others. We present a simple theory of how people use the explanations they encounter as clues to the broader landscape of possible explanations, informing their decision to exploit what has been found or explore new possibilities. The challenge of coming up with novel explanations draws people to exploit or imitate appealing ones (information cascades); this draw increases as less appealing alternatives become more distant (the ``strawman'' effect). Conversely, pairs of low-quality explanations promote exploratory behavior or long-leaps away from observed attempts, and pairs of divergent high-quality explanations can lead to merging and syncretism. We use a transmission-chain experiment to test, and confirm, these predictions. Intriguingly, we also find that while people imitate good explanations, their imitations often fall short in quality. Our work provides new insight into how collective exploration can be promoted, or stalled, by implicit information about what is yet to be discovered.