Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

Explanations not only increase understanding; they are oftendeeply satisfying. In the present research, we explore how thisphenomenological sense of “explanatory satisfaction” relatesto the functional role of explanation within the process ofinquiry. In two studies, we address the following questions: 1)Does explanatory satisfaction track the epistemic, learning-directed features of explanation? and 2) How doesexplanatory satisfaction relate to both antecedent andsubsequent curiosity? In answering these questions, weuncover novel determinants of explanatory satisfaction andcontribute to the broader literature on explanation and inquiry.