Surprise: Youve got some explaining to do
This addresses a psychological problem of understanding surprise mechanisms for researchers, but it is incremental as it builds on existing theories by testing explanation ease.
The paper investigates why some events are more surprising than others, proposing that difficulty of explanation drives surprise, and finds through two experiments that known outcomes are rated less surprising than less-known ones, and providing explanations lowers surprise compared to answering comprehension questions.
Why are some events more surprising than others? We propose that events that are more difficult to explain are those that are more surprising. The two experiments reported here test the impact of different event outcomes (Outcome-Type) and task demands (Task) on ratings of surprise for simple story scenarios. For the Outcome-Type variable, participants saw outcomes that were either known or less-known surprising outcomes for each scenario. For the Task variable, participants either answered comprehension questions or provided an explanation of the outcome. Outcome-Type reliably affected surprise judgments; known outcomes were rated as less surprising than less-known outcomes. Task also reliably affected surprise judgments; when people provided an explanation it lowered surprise judgments relative to simply answering comprehension questions. Both experiments thus provide evidence on this less-explored explanation aspect of surprise, specifically showing that ease of explanation is a key factor in determining the level of surprise experienced.