Cognition, Recognition, and Recall

Bridging the Gap between Matter and Symbol II

(On [or back] to The Philosophy of Quicktime, Bridging the Gap between Matter and Symbol I ) or forward to Visual Reasoning Revisited: More on Cognition, Recognition, and Recall

When new information comes to an organism's attention, the organism may or may not achieve cognition of it. Let's suppose that it does.

When the same information or very similar ("similar enough") information is encountered again, re-cognition, commonly known as recognition, takes place. Recognition is very fast, nearly instantaneous. Just about every time it occurs, some reasoning has to have taken place.

With new information presented as a lecture, a book (or similar reading matter), a chart, a few pictures in a series, or a slideshow; when asked to use the information in any way, the path is by way of recall. The organism has to painstakingly recall the lecture or chart or book, and apply the information to a new situation that is not the same as the situation in which the information was first presented. One is not reading a book when you need to dredge up the information you need from the book; you may even have to go back and consult the book. Reading a book is a task in itself; applying the information from the book to a task is quite another thing indeed.

• An example of recognition is seeing your friend's face in a sea of faces. You haven't seen this person in ten years and he's changed a lot in every respect. Nonetheless you pick him out in a few seconds.

   

• An example of recall is figuring out how to remove and replace the spark plugs in your motorcyle, when you've never done it before on a motorcycle, and you're working from the shop manual.

   

• An example of cognition was learning your friend's face in the first place.

  Recognition of your friend's face in a crowd is taken for granted, but actually is one of the most amazing things an organism can do voluntarily.

More to the point: Using digitized movies to acquire skill rapidly.

• An example of cognition is acquiring a skill by repetitively viewing a movie of a person performing that skill, e.g. Quicktime® digitized videos like TipCartsNet.mov and BobJonesNet.mov .
• The learner may or may not pay attention to the movie; if not, then the learner won't achieve cognition.
• If the learner does pay attention to the movie, the learner may or may not understand the words or the images; if not, then that learner won't achieve cognition either.
• When the learner who has achieved cognition through repetitive viewing of a skill, meets up with the need to perform that skill in the "real world", the learner recognizes that the situation is just about the same as the situation in the movie. After a period of calibration, the learner performs the skill as required, to the best of physical and mental ability.

  This is very very good.

• If the learner has achieved cognition, and recognizes the task, but can't perform it, that's a shame, and we have to write it off and say that some people just aren't cut out for that kind of work.

Richard Katz 1999

Back to FrogOJT page., with links to some Quicktime movies.

On (or back) to The Philosophy of Quicktime, Bridging the Gap between Matter and Symbol I