Are formal explanations mere placeholders or pointers?
Are formal explanations mere placeholders or pointers?
复制标题
正式的解释仅仅是占位符还是指针？
DOI：
10.1016/j.cognition.2023.105407
复制
发表时间：
2023
期刊：
影响因子：
3.4
通讯作者：
Prasada,Sandeep
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Rivera,Shamauri;Prasad,Sam;Prasada,Sandeep
形式解释（Formal explanations）：通过参照事物是什么来解释事物属性的解释，例如，Fido有四条腿，因为他是一只狗，这似乎是同义反复，并导致研究人员询问为什么它们会产生。一种建议是，它们的功能是占位符或指向解释的指针。根据占位符和指针作为附加功能（PPAF）假设，形式解释本身是解释性的，占位符和指针功能是形式解释的附加功能。相反，仅占位符和指针（MPP）假设认为，形式解释本身不是解释性的，而是解释结构的占位符或指针。四个实验比较正式的解释，是毫无争议的重言式的反应和反应，毫无争议地作为占位符的内在解释，而不提供解释。结果表明，正式的解释不被理解为重言式，而且，与固有的解释占位符，正式的解释是有选择性的功能，他们的目标，并适用于跨内容域。这些结果是一致的PPAF，并建议正式的解释涉及的解释模式，这是不同于内在的解释模式。概念表示的影响进行了讨论。
Formal explanations – explanations that explain properties of a thing by reference to what the thing is, for example,Fido has four legs because he is a dog, appear to be tautological and have led researchers to ask why they are produced. One proposal is that they function as placeholders or pointers to explanations. According to the Placeholders and Pointers as Additional Functions (PPAF) hypothesis, formal explanations are explanatory in and of themselves, and the placeholder and pointer functions are additional functions of formal explanations. In contrast, the Merely Placeholders and Pointers (MPP) hypothesis holds that formal explanations are not explanatory in and of themselves but are placeholders for, or pointers to, explanatory structures. Four experiments compared formal explanations to responses that are uncontroversially tautological and to responses that uncontroversially serve as placeholders for inherent explanations without providing an explanation. The results suggest that formal explanations are not understood to be tautologies, and that, unlike inherent explanation placeholders, formal explanations are selective in the features they target, and apply across content domains. These results are consistent with the PPAF and suggest that formal explanations involve a mode of explanation that is distinct from the mode of explanation involved in inherent explanation. Implications for conceptual representation are discussed.