![]() ![]() ![]() The children simply can’t reconstruct their prior ignorance about the bag’s contents (Wimmer & Perner, 1983). Ultimately, the children not only believe that other children entering the lab will expect to find pencils rather than candy in the box, but will say that they themselves knew all along what the box really contained. Expecting to find candy, the children instead find the box contains pencils. He uses as a paradigm a common theory-of-mind task in which the experimenters invite young children into a lab and hand them a candy box. But it’s one that is especially pertinent to students crafting term papers and scholars submitting research articles to journals - and, for that matter, teachers of psychology because many of the principles of clear and effective writing also apply to teaching. The curse of knowledge is only one of many writing pitfalls - from excessive clichés to the abuse of passive voice - that Pinker discussed. During his APS–David Myers Distinguished Lecture on the Science and Craft of Teaching Psychological Science at the APS Annual Convention in New York City he addressed the points he raises in the book. Pinker, a linguist at Harvard University, discusses this so-called curse of knowledge in his latest book, The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century. Pinker’s key insights on the cognitive and psycholinguistic factors that fuel arcane, awkward prose - including scholarly text. That’s a simple way of summing up one of APS Fellow Steven A. The more you know, the less clearly you write. ![]()
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