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In a 2002 study, people rated how well they understood everyday devices such as zips and bicycle gears, then tried to write a step-by-step explanation of how they work. Once they tried, their ratings dropped sharply: they knew far less about how the parts worked than they had believed.

Leonid Rozenblit & Frank Keil, 2002 study (Cognitive Science)

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Psychologists Leonid Rozenblit and Frank Keil of Yale called this the illusion of explanatory depth: people mistake being familiar with something for understanding how it works, and notice the gap only when they have to explain each step. Their first experiment used 16 Yale undergraduates. In later experiments the illusion was strong for devices and natural processes, but did not appear for plain facts such as capital cities, for procedures, or for the plots of stories, where people judged their knowledge more accurately. In 2013 Philip Fernbach and colleagues found the same with politics: after trying to explain how policies such as a cap-and-trade scheme for carbon emissions would work, people rated their understanding lower and held more moderate views.

Türkçe oku
2002'de yapılan bir araştırmada katılımcılar, fermuar ya da bisiklet vitesi gibi gündelik aletleri ne kadar iyi anladıklarını puanladı, sonra bunların nasıl çalıştığını adım adım yazmaya çalıştı. Yazmaya başlayınca puanları sert biçimde düştü: parçaların nasıl işlediğini sandıklarından çok daha az biliyorlardı.

Yale Üniversitesi'nden psikologlar Leonid Rozenblit ve Frank Keil buna “açıklama derinliği yanılsaması” adını verdi: insanlar bir şeye aşina olmayı onun nasıl işlediğini anlamakla karıştırır ve aradaki farkı ancak her adımı açıklamak zorunda kaldıklarında görür. İlk deneye Yale'den 16 lisans öğrencisi katıldı. Sonraki deneylerde yanılsama aletlerde ve doğa olaylarında güçlü çıktı, ama başkentler gibi düz bilgilerde, bir işin nasıl yapıldığında ya da bir hikâyenin olay örgüsünde görülmedi; insanlar bu konularda bilgilerini daha doğru tartıyordu. Philip Fernbach ve arkadaşları 2013'te aynı şeyi siyasette buldu: karbon salımına tavan koyup izin alım satımına dayanan bir düzen gibi politikaların nasıl işleyeceğini anlatmaya çalışan insanlar, konuyu anlama puanlarını düşürdü ve görüşleri de ılımlılaştı.

Sources and further reading

Background reading: Illusion of explanatory depth
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