ABSTRACT
Seeking explanations is a fundamental part of everyday cognitive life. Many accounts of concepts and naïve theories have correspondingly placed explanation at the center of conceptual representation. Concepts for which we have an underlying explanation are learned more efficiently (e.g. Spalding & Murphy, 1999) and said to gain conceptual coherence (Murphy & Medin, 1985) and embody systematic sets of beliefs (Keil, 1989). Similarly, causal-explanatory principles are thought to ground our naïve theories of physics, psychology, and biology (e.g. Carey, 1985).
