Rozenblitt & Keil (2002), document a robust Illusion of Explanatory Depth (IoED) across a number of different participant groups as well as different sets of devices. (See table 8 for a summary.) In particular, they document that people think they understand the world in far more detail than they actually do. They rule out general overconfidence, as they note that the IoED effect disappears for procedural knowledge.
Basing upon the 4E framework (Newen, De Bruin, Gallaghar, 2018), I argue that the disappearance of IoED for procedural knowledge may be driven by the embodiment. This is so because embodiment allows procedural knowledge to be closely linked to the environment without representing the entirety of the procedures in the participant's heads. The question then remains what exactly it is that the participants learn while operating an object if not its mechanisms. My answer, building chapter 6 of Bermudez (2020), is that participants learn the dynamic model which helps guide their interactions with the object. The specifics of the dynamic model of a particular object, as well as the process of learning the dynamic model itself for generic objects remains a topic of further computational work. I'm certain someone well-versed in Robotics would have much to say about the recent progress in these approaches. One modification that I'd like to make to the dynamical system models in chapter 6 is include the notion of goals or intentions, since I think that is very important in guiding how we manipulate an object.
I also argue that IoED in other cases may be driven by people's implicit knowledge of what other people know (extended cognition). Thus, I hypothesize that when stimuli involve objects, for which participants cannot imagine having access to experts, there will be no IoED effect.
References:
- Rozenblit, L., & Keil, F. (2002). The misunderstood limits of folk science: An illusion of explanatory depth. Cognitive science, 26(5), 521-562.
- Newen, A., De Bruin, L., & Gallagher, S. (Eds.). (2018). The Oxford Handbook of 4E Cognition. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198735410.001.0001
- Bermúdez, J. L. (2020). Cognitive Science: An Introduction to the Science of the Mind (3rd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.