Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

Much of human learning throughout the lifespan is achievedthrough seeking and generating explanations. However, verylittle is known about what triggers a learner to seek anexplanation. In two studies, we investigate what makes a givenevent or phenomenon stand in need of explanation. In Study 1,we show that a learner’s judgment of “need for explanation”for a given question predicts that learner’s likelihood ofseeking an answer to this question. In Study 2, we exploreseveral potential predictors of need for explanation. We findthat the need for explanation is greater for questions expectedto have useful answers that require expert understanding, andthat “need for explanation” can be differentiated from generalcuriosity.