Showing papers on "Tacit knowledge published in 1981"

The imagery debate: Analogue media versus tacit knowledge.

Abstract: The debate over the nature of mental imagery, especially with respect to the interpretation of recent findings on the transformation of images.” has failed to focus on the crucial differences between the so-called “analogue” and “propositional” approaches. In this paper I attempt to clarify the disagreements by focusing on the alleged spatial nature of images and on recent findings concerned with “rotation” and “scanning” of mental images. It is argued that the main point of disagreement concerns whether certain aspects of the way in which images are transformed should be attributed to intrinsic knowledge-independent properties of the medium in which images are instantiated or the mechanisms by which they are processed, or whether images are typically transformed in certain ways because subjects take their task to be the simulation of the act of witnessing certain real events taking place and therefore use their tacit knowledge of the imaged situation to cause the transformation to proceed as they believe it would have proceeded in reality. The fundamental difference between these t o modes of processing is examined, and certain general difficulties inherent in the analogue account are discussed. It is argued that the tacit knowledge a count is more plausible, at least in the cases examined, because it is a more general account and also because certain empirical results demonstrate that both “mental scanning” and “mental rotation” transformations can be critically influenced by varying the instructions given to subjects and the precise form of the task used and that the form of the influence is explainable in terms of the semantic content of subjects' beliefs and goals—that is, that these operations are cognitively penetrable by subjects' beliefs and goals. Functions that are cognitively penetrable in this sense, it is argued, must be explained, at least in part, by reference to computational cognitive processes whose behavior is governed by goals, beliefs, and tacit knowledge rather than by properties of analogue mechanism.

Prose Comprehension Beyond the Word

Abstract: When individuals read or listen to prose they try to understand what it means. This is quite obvious. However, the cognitive mechanisms that participate in prose comprehension are far from obvious. Even simple stories involve com plexities that have stymied many cognitive scientists. Why is prose comprehen sion so difficult to study? Perhaps because comprehension is guided by so many domains of knowledge. Perhaps because some critical mysteries of prose comprehension reside between the lines-in the mind of the comprehender. Ten years ago very few psychologists were willing to dig beyond the surface of explicit code in their studies of discourse processing. Tacit knowledge, world knowledge, inferences, and expectations were slippery notions that experimental psychologists managed to circumvent rather than understand. In many scientific circles it was taboo to investigate mechanisms and phenomena that are not directly governed by the physical stimulus. Fortunately, times have changed. Cognitive scientists are now vigorously exploring the puzzles of comprehension that lie beyond the word. The study of discourse processing is currently growing at a frenetic pace."

Only Time Can Tell: On the Topology of Mental Space and Time

Abstract: It's been rather fashionable in the last several years for psychologists to explain how people can "know more than they can tell."' Our skilled competence at language or in problem-solving activities such as chess playing has suggested a level of nonverbalizable knowledge that can be described by encoded actions that are stored as static mental programs. That is, a general approach to the representation of nonverbalizable knowledge has developed which asserts that some stored commodities, which are available but not obviously used, underlie the tacit comprehension of a person reading a book or solving a problem. Frequently, therefore, tacit knowledge is interpreted simply to imply the existence of a static code that's not verbalized at the moment.

Cultural Lag in Science

Abstract: The phenomena to be discussed below are two. First, the existence and extent of cultural lag within the scientific community. Second, the denial of this fact by the scientific establishment. The theoretical proposal that will be made below is to replace Kuhn’s idea of distinguishing the scientific from the non-scientific fields of inquiry. He uses the qualitative distinctions between those which have a paradigm and those that do not. It is preferable to use a more, quantitative idea: of two fields of inquiry, that one is more progressive which has a smaller mean time lag between the appearance of an innovation and its public recognition. The proposal that will be made is of some institutional reforms within the commonwealth of learning, particularly such as to reduce the incentives for the Salieri effect and increase the incentive for talent scouting.