Frank C Keil
Biographic Data
| ID | 738252 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Frank C Keil |
| GIVEN NAMES | Frank C |
| FAMILY NAME | Keil |
| SIGNATURE | KEIL F C |
| AFFILIATIONS | Yale University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-3688-7558 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 49 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 129 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 48 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1979 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Developing intellectual humility: Questions, dilemmas, and future directions
This article presents an overview and critique of current interdisciplinary research on the nature and development of intellectual humility (IH), with the aim of systematically outlining currently debated open questions. We focus on four specific areas of research: (1) theoretical questions regarding the nature of IH, (2) issues with the measurement of IH in development, (3) existing research on the development of IH and related socio-cognitive a…
Money on my Mind: An Investigation of the Folk Classification of Money
No privileged link between intentionality and causation: Generalizable effects of agency in language
Herding cats: Children and adults infer collective decision speed from team size and diversity, but disagree about whether consensus strength matters more than team size
Adults' learning of complex explanations violates their intuitions about optimal explanatory order
A right way to explain? Function, mechanism, and the order of explanations
Same people, different group: Social structures are a central component of group concepts
Young children can infer information preferences from goals and recommend appropriate sources to others
As adults, we intuitively understand how others' goals influence their information-seeking preferences. For example, you might recommend a dense book full of mechanistic details to someone trying to learn about a topic in-depth, but a more lighthearted book filled with surprising stories to someone seeking entertainment. Moreover, you might do this with confidence despite knowing few details about either book. Even though we offer or receive such…
Subjectivity and social constitution: Contrasting conceptions of institutions, artifacts, and animals
We systematically compared beliefs about animal (e.g., lion ), artifactual (e.g., hammer ), and institutional (e.g., police officer ) categories, aiming to identify whether people draw different inferences about which categories are subjective and which are socially constituted. We conducted two studies with 270 American children, ages 4 through 10: 140 girls, 129 boys, one not reported; 59% White, 3% Black, 10% Asian, one Native American, 17% mu…
Thinking takes time: Children use agents' response times to infer the source, quality, and complexity of their knowledge
Quantity perception: The forest and the trees
Evidence for multiple sources of inductive potential: Occupations and their relations to social institutions
Motive on the mind: Explanatory preferences at multiple stages of the legal-investigative process
Using space to remember: Short-term spatial structure spontaneously improves working memory
An Illusion of Self-Sufficiency for Learning About Artifacts in Scaffolded Learners, But Not Observers
Two studies ask whether scaffolded children (n = 243, 5–6 years and 9–10 years) recognize that assistance is needed to learn to use complex artifacts. In Study 1, children were asked to learn to use a toy pantograph. While children recognized the need for assistance for indirect knowledge, 70% of scaffolded children claimed that they would have learned to use the artifact without assistance, even though 0% of children actually succeeded without a…
The trajectory of counterfactual simulation in development
Young children often struggle to answer the question "what would have happened?" particularly in cases where the adult-like "correct" answer has the same outcome as the event that actually occurred. Previous work has assumed that children fail because they cannot engage in accurate counterfactual simulations. Children have trouble considering what to change and what to keep fixed when comparing counterfactual alternatives to reality. However, mos…
Children and adults selectively generalize mechanistic knowledge
Judgments of spatial extent are fundamentally illusory: ‘Additive-area’ provides the best explanation
Core cognition in adult vision: A surprising discrepancy between the principles of object continuity and solidity
From an early age, humans intuitively expect physical objects to obey core principles, including continuity (objects follow spatiotemporally continuous paths) and solidity (two solid objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time). These two principles are sometimes viewed as deriving from a single overarching “persistence” principle. Indeed, violations of solidity where one solid object seemingly passes through another could theoretically…
Institutional actors: Children’s emerging beliefs about the causal structure of social roles
Institutions make new forms of acting possible: Signing executive orders, scoring goals, and officiating weddings are only possible because of the U.S. government, the rules of soccer, and the institution of marriage. Thus, when an individual occupies a particular social role (president, soccer player, and officiator), they acquire new ways of acting on the world. The present studies investigated children's beliefs about institutional actions, an…
Dangerous and distinctive properties bias category judgments late in development
When faced with entities with potentially ambiguous category membership, adult category judgments are strongly biased toward dangerous and distinctive properties. For example, a cyanide-water mixture is categorized as cyanide. We used a developmental approach to better understand this cross-domain effect, which we term the asymmetric categorization of mixtures (ACM). According to ACM, attention is biased toward perceived dangerous or distinctive …
When saying “I’m best” is benign: Developmental shifts in perceptions of boasting
Four studies explored developmental changes in attitudes toward boasting. Overall, 5- to 7-year-olds (N = 130) were more likely than 8- to 11-year-olds (N = 126) and adults (N = 263) to view characters who boasted about valued traits as likable. In Study 1, younger children, unlike the older participants, liked and morally valued boasters who were accurate about their boasts. Justifications suggested the 5- to 7-year-olds perceived the boaster as…
The Influence of Social Interaction on Intuitions of Objectivity and Subjectivity
We present experimental evidence that people's modes of social interaction influence their construal of truth. Participants who engaged in cooperative interactions were less inclined to agree that there was an objective truth about that topic than were those who engaged in a competitive interaction. Follow-up experiments ruled out alternative explanations and indicated that the changes in objectivity are explained by argumentative mindsets: When …
The better part of not knowing: Virtuous ignorance
Suppose you are presented with 2 informants who have provided answers to the same question. One provides a precise and confident answer, and the other says that they do not know. If you were asked which of these 2 informants was more of an expert, intuitively you would select the informant who provided the certain answer over the ignorant informant. However, for cases in which precise information is practically or actually unknowable (e.g., the n…
Searching for explanations: How the Internet inflates estimates of internal knowledge.
As the Internet has become a nearly ubiquitous resource for acquiring knowledge about the world, questions have arisen about its potential effects on cognition. Here we show that searching the Internet for explanatory knowledge creates an illusion whereby people mistake access to information for their own personal understanding of the information. Evidence from 9 experiments shows that searching for information online leads to an increase in self…
Explanation and Understanding
The study of explanation, while related to intuitive theories, concepts, and mental models, offers important new perspectives on high-level thought. Explanations sort themselves into several distinct types corresponding to patterns of causation, content domains, and explanatory stances, all of which have cognitive consequences. Although explanations are necessarily incomplete--often dramatically so in laypeople--those gaps are difficult to discer…
A bias for the natural? Children’s beliefs about traits acquired through effort, bribes, or medicine
Three studies compared beliefs about natural and late blooming positive traits with those acquired through personal effort, extrinsic rewards or medicine. Young children (5-6 years), older children (8-13 years), and adults all showed a strong bias for natural and late blooming traits over acquired traits. All age groups, except 8- to 10-year-olds, treated natural and late-blooming traits as fixed essences that would persist over time and under ch…
Explanation, association, and the acquisition of word meaning
A newly emerging view of concept structure, the concepts-in-theories view, suggests that adult concepts are intrinsic mixes of two different sorts of relations: (a) those involving domain-general tabulations of frequencies and correlations and (b) those involving domain-specific patterns of explanation. Empirical results from early cognitive development suggest that, by the time first words are acquired, most concepts have this intrinsic mix even…
When and Why Do Hedgehogs and Foxes Differ
Philip E. Tetlock's finding that "hedgehog" experts (those with one big theory) are worse predictors than "foxes" (those with multiple, less comprehensive theories) offers fertile ground for future research. Are experts as likely to exhibit hedgehog- or fox-like tendencies in areas that call for explanatory, diagnostic, and skill-based expertise-as they did when Tetlock called on experts to make predictions? Do particular domains of expertise cur…
The better part of not knowing: Virtuous ignorance
Suppose you are presented with 2 informants who have provided answers to the same question. One provides a precise and confident answer, and the other says that they do not know. If you were asked which of these 2 informants was more of an expert, intuitively you would select the informant who provided the certain answer over the ignorant informant. However, for cases in which precise information is practically or actually unknowable (e.g., the n…
The trajectory of counterfactual simulation in development
Young children often struggle to answer the question "what would have happened?" particularly in cases where the adult-like "correct" answer has the same outcome as the event that actually occurred. Previous work has assumed that children fail because they cannot engage in accurate counterfactual simulations. Children have trouble considering what to change and what to keep fixed when comparing counterfactual alternatives to reality. However, mos…
Development of the ability to perceive ambiguities: Evidence for the task specificity of a linguistic skill
Figuring out function: Children’s and adults’ use of ownership information in judgments of artifact function
Across 3 experiments, we found evidence that information about who owns an artifact influenced 5- to 10-year-old children's and adults' judgments about that artifact's primary function. Children's and adults' use of ownership information was underpinned by their inference that owners are typically familiar with owned artifacts and are therefore likely to know their primary functions. Accordingly, when this inference was undermined-when an artifac…
Semantic and conceptual development: An Ontological Perspective
Development of the ability to perceive ambiguities: Evidence for the task specificity of a linguistic skill
Semantic and Conceptual Development: An Ontological Perspective
Metaphor Comprehension and Knowledge of Semantic Domains
In this experiment, metaphor comprehension is found to affect similarity relations between concepts never presented in metaphor, but which belong to the same semantic domains as concepts previously related. In particular, concepts that would form appropriate metaphors increase in similarity as a consequence of reading other metaphors relating their domains, whereas concepts that would form inappropriate metaphors decrease in similarity. In additi…
Concepts, Kinds, and Cognitive Development
In Concepts, Kinds, and Cognitive Development, Frank C. Keil provides a coherent account of how concepts and word meanings develop in children, adding to our understanding of the representational nature of concepts and word meanings at all ages. Keil argues that it is impossible to adequately understand the nature of conceptual representation without also considering the issue of learning. Weaving together issues in cognitive development, philoso…
The birth and nurturance of concepts by domains: The origins of concepts of living things
The revival of interest in domains of cognition, especially in the contexts of cross-cultural and developmental studies, is a welcome new awareness of how different sorts of concepts and belief systems might become tailored to particular kinds of lawful regularities in our physical and social worlds. To make much progress, however, this new emphasis requires more precise distinctions between types of domains and better descriptions of the ways in…
Explanation, association, and the acquisition of word meaning
A newly emerging view of concept structure, the concepts-in-theories view, suggests that adult concepts are intrinsic mixes of two different sorts of relations: (a) those involving domain-general tabulations of frequencies and correlations and (b) those involving domain-specific patterns of explanation. Empirical results from early cognitive development suggest that, by the time first words are acquired, most concepts have this intrinsic mix even…
Conceptualizing a Nonnatural Entity: Anthropomorphism in God Concepts
We investigate the problem of how nonnatural entities are represented by examining university students' concepts of God, both professed theological beliefs and concepts used in comprehension of narratives. In three story processing tasks, subjects often used an anthropomorphic God concept that is inconsistent with stated theological beliefs; and drastically distorted the narratives without any awareness of doing so. By heightening subjects' aware…
Explanation and Cognition
These essays draw on work in the history and philosophy of science, the philosophy of mind and language, the development of concepts in children, conceptual change in adults, and reasoning in human and artificial systems. Explanations seem to be a large and natural part of our cognitive lives. As Frank Keil and Robert Wilson write, "When a cognitive activity is so ubiquitous that it is expressed both in a preschooler's idle questions and in work …
The Acquisition of Japanese Numeral Classifiers: Linkage Between Grammatical Forms and Conceptual Categories
The misunderstood limits of folk science: An illusion of explanatory depth
People feel they understand complex phenomena with far greater precision, coherence, and depth than they really do; they are subject to an illusion—an illusion of explanatory depth. The illusion is far stronger for explanatory knowledge than many other kinds of knowledge, such as that for facts, procedures or narratives. The illusion for explanatory knowledge is most robust where the environment supports real‐time explanations with visible mechan…
Contents Vol. 46, 2003
That’s Life: Coming to Understand Biology
Most people seem to live in worlds of the artificial. Those who are particularly inept with plants may awake in a home of devices and furniture, and when they work at home, encounter only machines and inanimate things. But even for the most urban and nature avoidant, biological thought is an essential part of daily life. We are after all inhabitants of biological systems and must confront that biology countless times in a day. When we feel hungry…
The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature (review)
Reviewed by: The blank slate: The modern denial of human nature by Steven Pinker Frank Keil The blank slate: The modern denial of human nature. By Steven Pinker. New York: Viking Press, 2002. Pp. 509. ISBN 0670031518. $27.95. Humans come to behave and think in different ways from other species despite what might seem to be similar environmental experiences. The best example is language. Even the most dedicated and deranged pet owners who talk con…
Explanation and Understanding
The study of explanation, while related to intuitive theories, concepts, and mental models, offers important new perspectives on high-level thought. Explanations sort themselves into several distinct types corresponding to patterns of causation, content domains, and explanatory stances, all of which have cognitive consequences. Although explanations are necessarily incomplete--often dramatically so in laypeople--those gaps are difficult to discer…
The hidden structure of overimitation
Young children are surprisingly judicious imitators, but there are also times when their reproduction of others' actions appears strikingly illogical. For example, children who observe an adult inefficiently operating a novel object frequently engage in what we term overimitation , persistently reproducing the adult's unnecessary actions. Although children readily overimitate irrelevant actions that even chimpanzees ignore, this curious effect ha…
Biology and Beyond: Domain Specificity in a Broader Developmental Context
The assumption of domain specificity has been invaluable to the study of the emergence of biological thought in young children. Yet, domains of thought must be understood within a broader context that explains how those domains relate to the surrounding cultures, to different kinds of cognitive constraints, to framing effects, to abilities to evaluate knowledge and to the ways in which domain-specific knowledge in any individual mind is related t…
The Seductive Allure of Neuroscience Explanations
Explanations of psychological phenomena seem to generate more public interest when they contain neuroscientific information. Even irrelevant neuroscience information in an explanation of a psychological phenomenon may interfere with people's abilities to critically consider the underlying logic of this explanation. We tested this hypothesis by giving naïve adults, students in a neuroscience course, and neuroscience experts brief descriptions of p…
Commentary: Conceptual Heterogeneity versus Developmental Homogeneity (on Chairs and Bears and Other Such Pairs)
Commentaries| December 24 2009 Commentary: Conceptual Heterogeneity versus Developmental Homogeneity (on Chairs and Bears and Other Such Pairs) Subject Area: Psychiatry and Psychology , Women's and Children's Health Frank C. Keil Frank C. Keil Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., USA Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Human Development (1988) 31 (1): 35–43. https://doi.org/10.1159/000273202 Article history Publ…
When and Why Do Hedgehogs and Foxes Differ
Philip E. Tetlock's finding that "hedgehog" experts (those with one big theory) are worse predictors than "foxes" (those with multiple, less comprehensive theories) offers fertile ground for future research. Are experts as likely to exhibit hedgehog- or fox-like tendencies in areas that call for explanatory, diagnostic, and skill-based expertise-as they did when Tetlock called on experts to make predictions? Do particular domains of expertise cur…
Exploring ownership in a developmental context
Ownership and economic behaviors are highly salient elements of the human social landscape. Indeed, the human world is literally constructed of property. Individuals perceive and manipulate a complex web of people and property that is largely invisible and abstract. In this chapter, the authors focus on drawing together information from a variety of disciplines, including legal theory, philosophy, psychology, and economics, to begin creating a co…
Children’s and Adults’ Intuitions about Who Can Own Things
The understanding that people can own certain things is essential for activities such as trading, lending, sharing, and use of currency. In two studies, children in grades K, 2, and 4 ( N = 118) and adults ( N = 40) were asked to identify whether four kinds of individuals could be owners: typical humans, non-human animals, artifacts, and atypical humans (e.g., individuals who were sleeping or unable to move). Participants in all age groups attrib…
A bias for the natural? Children’s beliefs about traits acquired through effort, bribes, or medicine
Three studies compared beliefs about natural and late blooming positive traits with those acquired through personal effort, extrinsic rewards or medicine. Young children (5-6 years), older children (8-13 years), and adults all showed a strong bias for natural and late blooming traits over acquired traits. All age groups, except 8- to 10-year-olds, treated natural and late-blooming traits as fixed essences that would persist over time and under ch…
Searching for explanations: How the Internet inflates estimates of internal knowledge.
As the Internet has become a nearly ubiquitous resource for acquiring knowledge about the world, questions have arisen about its potential effects on cognition. Here we show that searching the Internet for explanatory knowledge creates an illusion whereby people mistake access to information for their own personal understanding of the information. Evidence from 9 experiments shows that searching for information online leads to an increase in self…
Figuring out function: Children’s and adults’ use of ownership information in judgments of artifact function
Across 3 experiments, we found evidence that information about who owns an artifact influenced 5- to 10-year-old children's and adults' judgments about that artifact's primary function. Children's and adults' use of ownership information was underpinned by their inference that owners are typically familiar with owned artifacts and are therefore likely to know their primary functions. Accordingly, when this inference was undermined-when an artifac…
Psychology (45 works) · Child and Animal Learning Development (26 works) · Cognitive psychology (26 works) · Epistemology (21 works) · Social Psychology (21 works) · Cognition (18 works) · Computer Science (18 works) · Cognitive science (15 works) · Developmental psychology (15 works) · Linguistics (12 works)