Follow up.

I tracked down the actual study "Explanation Fiends and Foes: How Mechanistic Detail Determines Understanding and Preference".

The "alcalase and esperase" explanation was from the "non-causal detail" section of the experiment, where they constructed detailed explanations of things that had little to do with the actual reasons for the benefit claimed. They also tested people with "causal detail" explanations that had relevant explanations. The understanding scores were higher for causal explanations than non-causal.

Example non-causal:

"The post-free beater is made from a steel alloy, which is made by combining iron ore with small amounts of chromium and aluminum under very high heat. This reduces mixing time."

Causal detail:

"Without a center post to hinder movement of the ingredients, a vortex is created within the beater that forces dry ingredients to dissolve more easily, thereby reducing mixing time."

Causal details resulted in more understanding, as one would expect.

They also tested for several different levels of detail. The highest level for beaters was this:

"Without a center post to interfere with movement, liquid molecules move uniformly within the beater creating a lot of spin. This forces dry particles into suspension in the liquid, thereby reducing mixing time."

Rather than say "dissolve" they say "force into suspension in the liquid". Self evaluation of understanding went down for both groups once it got to that level. It seems clear to me that "force into suspension in the liquid" is less clear and provides no real additional details beyond "dissolve", which contributes to the confusion. It's not that people don't like technical details, it's that the explanation is actually less clear.

Compare also the explanations for white saran wrap being better because it blocks light:

intermediate: "The white coloring reflects light waves that would otherwise break down the amino acids that maintain the structure and freshness of the food, thereby keeping food fresh for longer."

detailed: "Atoms in the tinting agent oscillate when hit by light waves causing them to absorb the energy and reflect it back rather than reaching food where it would break the bonds holding amino acids together, thereby keeping food fresh for longer.

"Atoms in the tinting agent oscillate when hit by light waves causing them to absorb the energy and reflect it back" is cool, but "The white coloring reflects" is really a better way to explain it. Dropping down to the level of atoms in the wrap itself doesn't convey more relevant detail, it just obscures the meaning at this level. (Covering how the photons break amino acid bonds by causing molecules to shift configuration to handle the extra electrons created from the photon collisions might have been a better way to go hard core in the "detailed" level since that speaks more to the mechanism.)

The non-causal explanation for this one was "The cling wrap uses a white tinting agent which is composed of a mixture of titanium dioxide molecules and other binding agents. This keeps food fresh for longer." This fails to include the detail about light breaking down amino acids leading to less fresh food, so it introduces confusion since the TiO2 detail is less relevant than the amino acid detail. And as one would expect, fewer people felt they understood what was going on with this explanation than when the actual causal chain was presented.

In summary, the arstechnica article's example was selected incorrectly as it was from a different part of the study than what the arstechnica author was discussing at the time: he looked at Table 2 which dealt with experiment 3 rather than Table 1 which covered all phases including Experiment 1.

Also, in Experiment 2 where they tested whether people would be more likely to pay more for a premium product with additional features the curves for low CRT people were not linear. It went down from 4.3 to 3.1 with intermediate explanations, but back up to 3.4 with detailed explanations. This also suggests the possibility that it is not explanations but inadequate explanations that are confusing for some people.

Also relevant is that in Experiment 1 the level by which which reported understanding went down by "Low CRT" people was quite modest, only from 5.5 to 5.0 as explanations went from shallow to detailed. It should also be mentioned it went down slightly for high CRT people as well, from around 6.0 to 5.9 or so. (Estimates since I'm eyeballing the graph in the article.)

Finally, an extremely relevant detail is that when going from no detail to some detail, both understanding and product preference went up for BOTH groups.

Consider the example of bandaids with bubbles compared to bandaids without bubbles.

no detail: "The bubbles help cuts heal faster."

shallow detail: "The bubbles increase air circulation around the wound, thereby killing bacteria. This causes cuts to heal faster."

detailed: "The bubbles push the padding away from the wound allowing air to circulate. Oxygen in the air interferes with the metabolic processes of many bacteria, killing them and allowing the wound to heal faster."

Understanding goes from 3.5 to 5.5 for the low-CRT people and 2.2 to 4.5 for the high-CRT people. Some detail is better for everybody, and I would even say that the level of detail given here is sufficient for many to posit a more complete explanation, or at least find one through research if curious. Whereas the no detail explanation offers nothing, it might as well define energy as "energy makes things go" and it's certainly expected that this would result in the least understanding across the board.

Product preference goes from 3.9 to 4.3 for low-CRT people when we go from no detail to shallow. And 3.1 to 3.5 for high-CRT. So everyone benefits from a reasonable level of causal information.

This is extremely different from the vibe given by the article, which suggested that saying "it's blue" or "it's newfangled" was all you needed. That is not correct, that level of explanation performed the worst for all subjects in both understanding and product preference.

There's also a fourth Experiment in the paper. It should be addressed, but mostly to note that it is quite different from the rest. Subjects were presented with four products that were considerably less familiar than bandages and washing soap. They were given shallow explanations taken from product marketing literature, asked to rate their understanding, and then were ambushed with a demand to write a detailed essay describing in precise scientific detail exactly how the product actually worked, step by step. After this "exercise", not only did their evaluation of their own understanding go down (obviously), but the non-CRT people became quite hostile to the product itself and were much less likely to buy it.

Recall that in Experiment 2 these same people liked products more when proceeding from no explanation to a shallow one. In this experiment they did NOT test how willing they were to buy it after explaining it and before ambushing them, they only tested how willing they were to buy after ambushing them. The experimenters conclude that the explanation caused them to be less likely to buy. This is a plainly absurd conclusion and the experimenters have to realize this. It was the ambushing and demand that the person provide an essay describing the detailed workings of the product after forcing them to state whether they understood it or not that made them angry that is the cause here. This also is a scenario that is never found in actual consumer purchasing workflow, and quite irrelevant to marketing other than to tell you it is a mistake to corner your customer and demand explanations of them of how your product works after asking them if they understand it. All that does is embarrass them. Yes, the high-CRT people did well with the the exam and were more likely to buy, but obviously this is because they did understand how it worked. This experiment is completely disconnected from the important observation that a cursory, accurate and functional explanation of product benefits improved desirability of the product.