# Beyond Satisfaction: From Placebic to Actionable Explanations For Enhanced Understandability

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.06591 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.06591/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 12 of its 30 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 6 Dec 2025.

## Builds on (most cited first, 12 of 12)

- [Explanation in Artificial Intelligence: Insights from the Social Sciences](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.07269/) (2017)
- [Metrics for Explainable AI: Challenges and Prospects](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.04608/) (2018)
- [FACE: Feasible and Actionable Counterfactual Explanations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1909.09369/) (2019)
- [Proxy Tasks and Subjective Measures Can Be Misleading in Evaluating Explainable AI Systems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2001.08298/) (2020)
- [A Comprehensive Taxonomy for Explainable Artificial Intelligence: A Systematic Survey of Surveys on Methods and Concepts](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.07190/) (2021)
- [If Only We Had Better Counterfactual Explanations: Five Key Deficits to Rectify in the Evaluation of Counterfactual XAI Techniques](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.01035/) (2021)
- [Explainability Pitfalls: Beyond Dark Patterns in Explainable AI](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.12480/) (2021)
- [CARE: Coherent Actionable Recourse based on Sound Counterfactual Explanations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.08197/) (2021)
- [Explaining Classifications to Non Experts: An XAI User Study of Post Hoc Explanations for a Classifier When People Lack Expertise](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.09342/) (2022)
- [The Drawback of Insight: Detailed Explanations Can Reduce Agreement with XAI](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.19629/) (2024)
- [Are Objective Explanatory Evaluation metrics Trustworthy? An Adversarial Analysis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.07820/) (2024)
- [Not All Explanations are Created Equal: Investigating the Pitfalls of Current XAI Evaluation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.03730/) (2025)

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [Quality Without Usefulness: LLM-Generated XAI Narratives as Trust Heuristics Rather Than Decision Aids](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.26770/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Explainable AI (XAI) presents useful tools to facilitate transparency and trustworthiness in machine learning systems. However, current evaluations of system explainability often rely heavily on subjective user surveys, which may not adequately capture the effectiveness of explanations. This paper critiques the overreliance on user satisfaction metrics and explores whether these can differentiate between meaningful (actionable) and vacuous (placebic) explanations. In experiments involving optimal Social Security filing age selection tasks, participants used one of three protocols: no explanations, placebic explanations, and actionable explanations. Participants who received actionable explanations significantly outperformed the other groups in objective measures of their mental model, but users rated placebic and actionable explanations as equally satisfying. This suggests that subjective surveys alone fail to capture whether explanations truly support users in building useful domain understanding. We propose that future evaluations of agent explanation capabilities should integrate objective task performance metrics alongside subjective assessments to more accurately measure explanation quality. The code for this study can be found at https://github.com/Shymkis/social-security-explainer.