Concessions to Our Human Weakness

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 09:47:00 -0500

Whenever we process information, interpret an experience, or organize our actions, we do so within the context of existing intellectual knowledge abstractions”schemas. Schema theory has been developed within the field of psychology in an attempt to explain how these cognitive knowledge structures are derived from personal experience and how they are organized in memory. Furthermore, schema theory has allowed us to investigate how these schemas serve as prototypes in memory and how they influence our interpretations of events.

As an example, we can briefly examine a little story discussed in the 1985-published proceedings of Nobel Conference XX, How We Know (edited by Michael Shafto): “John went to a restaurant. He ordered lobster. He left a small tip. He left.” As we consider the story, we might conclude that we actually know quite a bit about John even though explicit items of information are not mentioned in the passage. We might say that we know that John ate lobster, was served by a waitress or a waiter, and was not pleased with the service and / or the food. What this brief example suggests is that when we process information, we do so within the context of our present cognitive knowledge. Therefore, when I read a paragraph (Sunday’s gospel passage, for example), or experience an event (the sacrament of Reconciliation), or interact with others (a social in the parish hall), I process and interpret these situations within the context of what I know about the world”that is, within the context of my stored schemas.

To further clarify this important point about how we process information, let’s look at a second example. I referenced the following paragraph years ago, in my dissertation research into the effects of contextual information on the comprehension and memory of prose material:

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Concessions to Our Human Weakness