Doing a quick review of last week's readings I noticed something that I hadn't before. In Ch 11 of the blue book, Ludy T. Benjamin Jr. talks a great deal about Gestalt Psychology, Bartlett, and the Computer metaphor, however he only briefly mentions Chomsky, Miller, and Brown. The reason this struck me as strange was because last semester in my Human Learning and Cognition class (in Florida) most of what we learned was coined and developed by Chomsky, Miller, and Brown. So I guess my question is, why did Benjamin not dive deeper into a discussion of those three, when seemingly their concepts are the most well-known or best understood of all that was discussed in Ch 11.
The most interesting part of Ch 11 to me though was the discussion of Bartlett and the mind as actively constructing information. I think it makes perfect sense that when we learn new information our mind doesn't just place it anywhere, but instead finds, I guess, it's common relatives, and places it in that area of your memory. This would explain why sometimes people don't seem to make sense, when in reality the associations being made are directly related to where information is stored in their head. Bartlett's concept of memory as subject to error I believe also makes perfect sense. How many times can I recall holding my daddy's hand in the gas station and looking up and realizing it wasn't my daddy, but according to Bartlett the question becomes, is that really my memory, did my mind fill in the blanks or make part of it up based on what my parents have told me? Hmmmm....
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