---
_id: '61156'
abstract:
- lang: eng
text: Explainability has become an important topic in computer science and artificial
intelligence, leading to a subfield called Explainable Artificial Intelligence
(XAI). The goal of providing or seeking explanations is to achieve (better) ‘understanding’
on the part of the explainee. However, what it means to ‘understand’ is still
not clearly defined, and the concept itself is rarely the subject of scientific
investigation. This conceptual article aims to present a model of forms of understanding
for XAI-explanations and beyond. From an interdisciplinary perspective bringing
together computer science, linguistics, sociology, philosophy and psychology,
a definition of understanding and its forms, assessment, and dynamics during the
process of giving everyday explanations are explored. Two types of understanding
are considered as possible outcomes of explanations, namely enabledness, ‘knowing
how’ to do or decide something, and comprehension, ‘knowing that’ – both in different
degrees (from shallow to deep). Explanations regularly start with shallow understanding
in a specific domain and can lead to deep comprehension and enabledness of the
explanandum, which we see as a prerequisite for human users to gain agency. In
this process, the increase of comprehension and enabledness are highly interdependent.
Against the background of this systematization, special challenges of understanding
in XAI are discussed.
article_number: '101419'
article_type: original
author:
- first_name: Hendrik
full_name: Buschmeier, Hendrik
id: '76456'
last_name: Buschmeier
orcid: 0000-0002-9613-5713
- first_name: Heike M.
full_name: Buhl, Heike M.
id: '27152'
last_name: Buhl
- first_name: Friederike
full_name: Kern, Friederike
last_name: Kern
- first_name: Angela
full_name: Grimminger, Angela
id: '57578'
last_name: Grimminger
- first_name: Helen
full_name: Beierling, Helen
id: '50995'
last_name: Beierling
- first_name: Josephine Beryl
full_name: Fisher, Josephine Beryl
id: '56345'
last_name: Fisher
orcid: 0000-0002-9997-9241
- first_name: André
full_name: Groß, André
id: '93405'
last_name: Groß
orcid: 0000-0002-9593-7220
- first_name: Ilona
full_name: Horwath, Ilona
id: '68836'
last_name: Horwath
- first_name: Nils
full_name: Klowait, Nils
id: '98454'
last_name: Klowait
orcid: 0000-0002-7347-099X
- first_name: Stefan Teodorov
full_name: Lazarov, Stefan Teodorov
id: '90345'
last_name: Lazarov
orcid: 0009-0009-0892-9483
- first_name: Michael
full_name: Lenke, Michael
last_name: Lenke
- first_name: Vivien
full_name: Lohmer, Vivien
last_name: Lohmer
- first_name: Katharina
full_name: Rohlfing, Katharina
id: '50352'
last_name: Rohlfing
orcid: 0000-0002-5676-8233
- first_name: Ingrid
full_name: Scharlau, Ingrid
id: '451'
last_name: Scharlau
orcid: 0000-0003-2364-9489
- first_name: Amit
full_name: Singh, Amit
id: '91018'
last_name: Singh
orcid: 0000-0002-7789-1521
- first_name: Lutz
full_name: Terfloth, Lutz
id: '37320'
last_name: Terfloth
- first_name: Anna-Lisa
full_name: Vollmer, Anna-Lisa
id: '86589'
last_name: Vollmer
- first_name: Yu
full_name: Wang, Yu
last_name: Wang
- first_name: Annedore
full_name: Wilmes, Annedore
last_name: Wilmes
- first_name: Britta
full_name: Wrede, Britta
last_name: Wrede
citation:
ama: Buschmeier H, Buhl HM, Kern F, et al. Forms of Understanding for XAI-Explanations.
Cognitive Systems Research. 2025;94. doi:10.1016/j.cogsys.2025.101419
apa: Buschmeier, H., Buhl, H. M., Kern, F., Grimminger, A., Beierling, H., Fisher,
J. B., Groß, A., Horwath, I., Klowait, N., Lazarov, S. T., Lenke, M., Lohmer,
V., Rohlfing, K., Scharlau, I., Singh, A., Terfloth, L., Vollmer, A.-L., Wang,
Y., Wilmes, A., & Wrede, B. (2025). Forms of Understanding for XAI-Explanations.
Cognitive Systems Research, 94, Article 101419. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogsys.2025.101419
bibtex: '@article{Buschmeier_Buhl_Kern_Grimminger_Beierling_Fisher_Groß_Horwath_Klowait_Lazarov_et
al._2025, title={Forms of Understanding for XAI-Explanations}, volume={94}, DOI={10.1016/j.cogsys.2025.101419},
number={101419}, journal={Cognitive Systems Research}, author={Buschmeier, Hendrik
and Buhl, Heike M. and Kern, Friederike and Grimminger, Angela and Beierling,
Helen and Fisher, Josephine Beryl and Groß, André and Horwath, Ilona and Klowait,
Nils and Lazarov, Stefan Teodorov and et al.}, year={2025} }'
chicago: Buschmeier, Hendrik, Heike M. Buhl, Friederike Kern, Angela Grimminger,
Helen Beierling, Josephine Beryl Fisher, André Groß, et al. “Forms of Understanding
for XAI-Explanations.” Cognitive Systems Research 94 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogsys.2025.101419.
ieee: 'H. Buschmeier et al., “Forms of Understanding for XAI-Explanations,”
Cognitive Systems Research, vol. 94, Art. no. 101419, 2025, doi: 10.1016/j.cogsys.2025.101419.'
mla: Buschmeier, Hendrik, et al. “Forms of Understanding for XAI-Explanations.”
Cognitive Systems Research, vol. 94, 101419, 2025, doi:10.1016/j.cogsys.2025.101419.
short: H. Buschmeier, H.M. Buhl, F. Kern, A. Grimminger, H. Beierling, J.B. Fisher,
A. Groß, I. Horwath, N. Klowait, S.T. Lazarov, M. Lenke, V. Lohmer, K. Rohlfing,
I. Scharlau, A. Singh, L. Terfloth, A.-L. Vollmer, Y. Wang, A. Wilmes, B. Wrede,
Cognitive Systems Research 94 (2025).
date_created: 2025-09-08T14:24:32Z
date_updated: 2025-12-05T15:32:25Z
ddc:
- '006'
department:
- _id: '660'
doi: 10.1016/j.cogsys.2025.101419
file:
- access_level: closed
content_type: application/pdf
creator: hbuschme
date_created: 2025-12-01T21:02:20Z
date_updated: 2025-12-01T21:02:20Z
file_id: '62730'
file_name: Buschmeier-etal-2025-COGSYS.pdf
file_size: 10114981
relation: main_file
success: 1
file_date_updated: 2025-12-01T21:02:20Z
has_accepted_license: '1'
intvolume: ' 94'
keyword:
- understanding
- explaining
- explanations
- explainable
- AI
- interdisciplinarity
- comprehension
- enabledness
- agency
language:
- iso: eng
main_file_link:
- open_access: '1'
url: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1389041725000993?via%3Dihub
oa: '1'
project:
- _id: '111'
name: 'TRR 318; TP A01: Adaptives Erklären'
- _id: '112'
name: 'TRR 318; TP A02: Verstehensprozess einer Erklärung beobachten und auswerten'
- _id: '113'
name: TRR 318 - Subproject A3
- _id: '114'
name: 'TRR 318; TP A04: Integration des technischen Modells in das Partnermodell
bei der Erklärung von digitalen Artefakten'
- _id: '115'
name: 'TRR 318; TP A05: Echtzeitmessung der Aufmerksamkeit im Mensch-Roboter-Erklärdialog'
- _id: '122'
name: TRR 318 - Subproject B3
- _id: '123'
name: TRR 318 - Subproject B5
- _id: '119'
name: TRR 318 - Project Area Ö
publication: Cognitive Systems Research
publication_status: published
quality_controlled: '1'
status: public
title: Forms of Understanding for XAI-Explanations
type: journal_article
user_id: '57578'
volume: 94
year: '2025'
...
---
_id: '58109'
abstract:
- lang: eng
text: The present study aims to understand how metaphors are used in explanations.
According to many current theories, metaphors have a conceptual function for the
understanding of abstract objects. From this theoretical assumption, we derived
the hypothesis that the lower the expertise of the addressee of an explanation,
the more metaphors should be used. We tested this hypothesis on a relatively natural
data set of 24 published videos with close to 100,000 words overall in which experts
explain abstract, mostly scientific concepts to persons of different expertise,
varying from minimal (children) to profound (expert). Contrary to our expectations,
the frequency of metaphors did not decrease with expertise, but actually increased.
This increase could be statistically substantiated with higher differences in
expertise. The study contributes to a better understanding of the use of metaphors
in actual explanatory processes and how metaphor use depends on contextual factors.
It thus supports the expansion of the conceptual and linguistic perspective on
metaphors to include the aspect of how metaphors are used by speakers.
article_type: original
author:
- first_name: Ingrid
full_name: Scharlau, Ingrid
id: '451'
last_name: Scharlau
orcid: 0000-0003-2364-9489
- first_name: Miriam
full_name: Körber, Miriam
last_name: Körber
- first_name: Meghdut
full_name: Sengupta, Meghdut
last_name: Sengupta
- first_name: Henning
full_name: Wachsmuth, Henning
last_name: Wachsmuth
citation:
ama: 'Scharlau I, Körber M, Sengupta M, Wachsmuth H. When to use a metaphor: Metaphors
in dialogical explanations with addressees of different expertise. Frontiers
in Language Sciences. 2024;3:1474924.'
apa: 'Scharlau, I., Körber, M., Sengupta, M., & Wachsmuth, H. (2024). When to
use a metaphor: Metaphors in dialogical explanations with addressees of different
expertise. Frontiers in Language Sciences, 3, 1474924.'
bibtex: '@article{Scharlau_Körber_Sengupta_Wachsmuth_2024, title={When to use a
metaphor: Metaphors in dialogical explanations with addressees of different expertise},
volume={3}, journal={Frontiers in Language Sciences}, author={Scharlau, Ingrid
and Körber, Miriam and Sengupta, Meghdut and Wachsmuth, Henning}, year={2024},
pages={1474924} }'
chicago: 'Scharlau, Ingrid, Miriam Körber, Meghdut Sengupta, and Henning Wachsmuth.
“When to Use a Metaphor: Metaphors in Dialogical Explanations with Addressees
of Different Expertise.” Frontiers in Language Sciences 3 (2024): 1474924.'
ieee: 'I. Scharlau, M. Körber, M. Sengupta, and H. Wachsmuth, “When to use a metaphor:
Metaphors in dialogical explanations with addressees of different expertise,”
Frontiers in Language Sciences, vol. 3, p. 1474924, 2024.'
mla: 'Scharlau, Ingrid, et al. “When to Use a Metaphor: Metaphors in Dialogical
Explanations with Addressees of Different Expertise.” Frontiers in Language
Sciences, vol. 3, 2024, p. 1474924.'
short: I. Scharlau, M. Körber, M. Sengupta, H. Wachsmuth, Frontiers in Language
Sciences 3 (2024) 1474924.
date_created: 2025-01-08T11:59:24Z
date_updated: 2025-01-08T11:59:34Z
department:
- _id: '660'
funded_apc: '1'
intvolume: ' 3'
keyword:
- metaphor
- conceptual metaphor
- conceptual metaphor theory
- metaphor usage
- explaining
- explanation
language:
- iso: eng
main_file_link:
- open_access: '1'
url: https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/language-sciences/articles/10.3389/flang.2024.1474924/full
oa: '1'
page: '1474924'
project:
- _id: '127'
name: 'TRR 318 - C4: TRR 318 - Subproject C4 - Metaphern als Werkzeug des Erklärens'
publication: Frontiers in Language Sciences
quality_controlled: '1'
status: public
title: 'When to use a metaphor: Metaphors in dialogical explanations with addressees
of different expertise'
type: journal_article
user_id: '451'
volume: 3
year: '2024'
...
---
_id: '48543'
abstract:
- lang: eng
text: Explanation has been identified as an important capability for AI-based systems,
but research on systematic strategies for achieving understanding in interaction
with such systems is still sparse. Negation is a linguistic strategy that is often
used in explanations. It creates a contrast space between the affirmed and the
negated item that enriches explaining processes with additional contextual information.
While negation in human speech has been shown to lead to higher processing costs
and worse task performance in terms of recall or action execution when used in
isolation, it can decrease processing costs when used in context. So far, it has
not been considered as a guiding strategy for explanations in human-robot interaction.
We conducted an empirical study to investigate the use of negation as a guiding
strategy in explanatory human-robot dialogue, in which a virtual robot explains
tasks and possible actions to a human explainee to solve them in terms of gestures
on a touchscreen. Our results show that negation vs. affirmation 1) increases
processing costs measured as reaction time and 2) increases several aspects of
task performance. While there was no significant effect of negation on the number
of initially correctly executed gestures, we found a significantly lower number
of attempts—measured as breaks in the finger movement data before the correct
gesture was carried out—when being instructed through a negation. We further found
that the gestures significantly resembled the presented prototype gesture more
following an instruction with a negation as opposed to an affirmation. Also, the
participants rated the benefit of contrastive vs. affirmative explanations significantly
higher. Repeating the instructions decreased the effects of negation, yielding
similar processing costs and task performance measures for negation and affirmation
after several iterations. We discuss our results with respect to possible effects
of negation on linguistic processing of explanations and limitations of our study.
article_type: original
author:
- first_name: A.
full_name: Groß, A.
last_name: Groß
- first_name: Amit
full_name: Singh, Amit
id: '91018'
last_name: Singh
orcid: 0000-0002-7789-1521
- first_name: Ngoc Chi
full_name: Banh, Ngoc Chi
id: '38219'
last_name: Banh
orcid: 0000-0002-5946-4542
- first_name: B.
full_name: Richter, B.
last_name: Richter
- first_name: Ingrid
full_name: Scharlau, Ingrid
id: '451'
last_name: Scharlau
orcid: 0000-0003-2364-9489
- first_name: Katharina J.
full_name: Rohlfing, Katharina J.
id: '50352'
last_name: Rohlfing
- first_name: B.
full_name: Wrede, B.
last_name: Wrede
citation:
ama: Groß A, Singh A, Banh NC, et al. Scaffolding the human partner by contrastive
guidance in an explanatory human-robot dialogue. Frontiers in Robotics and
AI. 2023;10. doi:10.3389/frobt.2023.1236184
apa: Groß, A., Singh, A., Banh, N. C., Richter, B., Scharlau, I., Rohlfing, K. J.,
& Wrede, B. (2023). Scaffolding the human partner by contrastive guidance
in an explanatory human-robot dialogue. Frontiers in Robotics and AI, 10.
https://doi.org/10.3389/frobt.2023.1236184
bibtex: '@article{Groß_Singh_Banh_Richter_Scharlau_Rohlfing_Wrede_2023, title={Scaffolding
the human partner by contrastive guidance in an explanatory human-robot dialogue},
volume={10}, DOI={10.3389/frobt.2023.1236184},
journal={Frontiers in Robotics and AI}, author={Groß, A. and Singh, Amit and Banh,
Ngoc Chi and Richter, B. and Scharlau, Ingrid and Rohlfing, Katharina J. and Wrede,
B.}, year={2023} }'
chicago: Groß, A., Amit Singh, Ngoc Chi Banh, B. Richter, Ingrid Scharlau, Katharina
J. Rohlfing, and B. Wrede. “Scaffolding the Human Partner by Contrastive Guidance
in an Explanatory Human-Robot Dialogue.” Frontiers in Robotics and AI 10
(2023). https://doi.org/10.3389/frobt.2023.1236184.
ieee: 'A. Groß et al., “Scaffolding the human partner by contrastive guidance
in an explanatory human-robot dialogue,” Frontiers in Robotics and AI,
vol. 10, 2023, doi: 10.3389/frobt.2023.1236184.'
mla: Groß, A., et al. “Scaffolding the Human Partner by Contrastive Guidance in
an Explanatory Human-Robot Dialogue.” Frontiers in Robotics and AI, vol.
10, 2023, doi:10.3389/frobt.2023.1236184.
short: A. Groß, A. Singh, N.C. Banh, B. Richter, I. Scharlau, K.J. Rohlfing, B.
Wrede, Frontiers in Robotics and AI 10 (2023).
date_created: 2023-10-30T09:29:16Z
date_updated: 2024-06-26T08:01:50Z
department:
- _id: '749'
doi: 10.3389/frobt.2023.1236184
funded_apc: '1'
intvolume: ' 10'
keyword:
- HRI
- XAI
- negation
- understanding
- explaining
- touch interaction
- gesture
language:
- iso: eng
main_file_link:
- open_access: '1'
url: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frobt.2023.1236184/full
oa: '1'
project:
- _id: '115'
grant_number: '438445824'
name: 'TRR 318 - A05: TRR 318 - Echtzeitmessung der Aufmerksamkeit im Mensch-Roboter-Erklärdialog
(Teilprojekt A05)'
publication: Frontiers in Robotics and AI
publication_status: published
quality_controlled: '1'
status: public
title: Scaffolding the human partner by contrastive guidance in an explanatory human-robot
dialogue
type: journal_article
user_id: '38219'
volume: 10
year: '2023'
...