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However, explanation can serve a range of purposes that place widely divergent requirements on the information an explanation must provide. It is argued that understanding what determines explanations' goodness requires a dynamic theory of evaluation, based on analysis of the information needed to satisfy the many goals that can prompt explanation; this view conforms to the commonsense idea that people accept and apply explanations precisely if those explanations give the information they need. A range of goals that can underly explanation is examined, and a theory is presented for evaluating whether an explanation provides the information an explainer needs for these goals. The theory is illustrated by sketching its implementation in the computer program, ACCEPTER, which does goal\u2010based evaluation of the goodness of explanations for surprising events in news stories.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1207\/s15516709cog1504_2","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2005,8,6]],"date-time":"2005-08-06T01:11:25Z","timestamp":1123290685000},"page":"509-545","update-policy":"http:\/\/dx.doi.org\/10.1002\/crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":12,"title":["Goal\u2010Based Explanation Evaluation"],"prefix":"10.1111","volume":"15","author":[{"given":"David B.","family":"Leake","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"311","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2010,2,11]]},"reference":[{"key":"e_1_2_1_2_1","unstructured":"Ahn W. Mooney R. 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