Humor and Joy in Learning

Humor

One might surmise that the evolutionary function of humor was to make a person feel joy instead of fear when he experiences something that is totally foreign to his existing knowledge structure.

But I think this situation could only occur if the person had closed down his "implicit learning" system, because "implicit" (unconscious) learning automatically integrates new and different experiences, even if they're incongruous. That is its function.

Maybe Nature prepared us with a "sense of humor" to face this exact scenario where instead of keeping our mind open, we for whatever reason did keep our ideas fixed (like "encoding algorithms"!).

Is this system denied to lower forms of life? Why would it be? Of course, they don't have language and so "explicit learning" is denied them. But are they capable of shutting off their unconscious learning system, as humans are, and so hobbling themselves from seeing reality? Are they, like us, capable of keeping their knowledge structure from changing? If so, why wouldn't they too feel the sensation of "humor" (indistinguishable from other instances of joy) just as we do when having a totally incongruous experience? Just because they don't laugh, that isn't proof they don't feel joy!

Chinese sounds can be very amusing to the American ear, especially recordings that are made for children where the speaker is impersonating different literary characters. It is revealing that when listened to "unconsciously" these sounds are no longer amusing at all! They are merely more data to be integrated into the cognitive unconscious.

How Shh Tract differs from Dr. Reber

For an academic study which on a number of points closely tracks Shh Tract, see Arthur S. Reber, “How to Differentiate Implicit and Explicit Modes of Acquisition’” in Scientific Approaches to Consciousness, Jonathan Cohen and Jonathan Schooler, eds., Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1997. Also: Implicit Learning and Tacit Knowledge, An Essay on the Cognitive Unconscious,” Oxford University Press (Clarendon Press), 1993. Professor Reber is also the author of a Dictionary of Psychology where one can find definitions of the terms “implicit learning,”, “explicit learning”, “tacit knowledge”, “declarative knowledge” and so forth. For example:

“Implicit learning” is defined as “ A term coined by A.S. Reber for learning that takes place largely independent of awareness of both the process of acquisition and the content of the knowledge so acquired. Material that has been learned in this fashion, often termed “procedural knowledge,” can be used to guide behavior, make decisions and solve problems, although that individual is typically unaware of the complex knowledge held that enables him or her to act in this fashion.

“Explicit Learning” is “Learning that takes place consciously and results in knowledge that is available to consciousness; learning of which one is aware.”

From the first reference above:

“Implicit acquisition systems have a long evolutionary history and can be found operating in virtually every species of even modest neurological complexity.” (p. 152)

“Our subjects are conscious of the fact that they have learned something. They are aware that cognitive change has taken place during the learning phase of the experiment, they know that they know something they did not know before. They have a “feeling of knowing.”

“The quick review of the literature included here strongly supports the notion of a hierarchically structured mind/brain with a foundational implicit acquisition and representation system that operates largely independently of consciousness, hovered over by an explicit cognizing system whose operations are intimately tied to consciousness.” (p. 151).

Shh Tract differs from Dr. Reber as follows:

“Implicit learning” is really the one and only mode of cognition. “Explicit learning” is merely either an understanding and putting into words of one’s own “tacit knowledge” or else an understanding of someone else’s proffered “knowledge” without integrating it into one’s own (tacit) view of the world.

The proof is that “explicit learning” simply cannot be intentionally or predictably integrated into one’s “cognitive unconscious”. No amount of effort will do it. The cognitive unconscious makes knowledge in completely unpredictable ways. That is its job.

No wonder tachistoscopists are frustrated in their efforts to insert specific content into the cognitive unconscious (p. 141, first reference above). The cognitive unconscious has a mind all its own. “Implicit learning” makes things part of your world. It gives you what you see when you “look out” at the world.

Obviously, “explicit learning” (which is learning by means of words) does make use of one’s existing “cognitive unconscious” (or per Shh Tract, one’s “conceptual structure”). But it doesn’t change that structure at all. No “cognition” occurs.

BOOK REVIEW: A Study of Thinking

"A Study of Thinking"

I have the first edition. A Study of Thinking, Jerome S. Bruner, Jacqueline J. Goodnow, and George A. Austin;John Wiley & Sons, Inc.,1956.

This book looks very meaty and will take a lot of study. It is "still hailed as a major contribution to our understanding of the mind;", "Groundbreaking; "Pioneering".

From the first paragraph of Chapter 3, "The Process of Concept Attainment":

"The transition experience between "not having" (a concept) and "having it" seems to be without experiential content."

It is true that the transition experience is always unconscious, although the experience of activating the "Shh" Tract can be either conscious or unconscious. One can consciously and deliberately make the unconscious experience happen!

"It is an enigmatic process and often a sudden process". Something happens quickly and one thinks one has found something."

Absolutely true!

But "It is curiously difficult to recapture pre-conceptual innocence."

This is wrong. In fact, it is very easy to recapture pre-conceptual innocence! The mind has a special tract just to allow this! "Shh" Tract. It is not overly hard to learn to use this brain system! That is why it is there! If the brain could not recapture pre-conceptual innocence, it could never process the new and unheard of, which would defeat the brain's whole purpose.

BOOK REVIEW: Arthur S. Reber, Implicit Learning and Tacit Knowledge, An Essay (Part 2)

Children and Declarative Knowledge

Dr. Reber notes that young children acquire huge amounts of information "relatively independently of conscious attempts to acquire it and without much in the way of conscious knowledge of what they have learned", sometimes much better than older children "who tend to engage in more explicit-type learning." However, it seems that older children do better on "the explicit task." Reber, Implicit Learning and Tacit Knowledge, 1003, pp. 94-97.

This is certainly in line with Shh Tract's claim that language is not necessary for cognition and can actually interfere with cognition. And that explicit learning (although "supported by conscious strategies for acquisition" (Ibid, p. 97) is not cognition at all. The basic fact is this: Explicit learning does not add to our procedural, or tacit, store of knowledge. It only adds to our "declarative knowledge." Declarative knowledge can be tentative knowledge gained by attempting to identify what is stored in our own cognitive unconscious, or it can be tentative knowledge borrowed from other people. But if "cognition" is our own personal knowing of "the outside world" (Shh Tract), explicit learning adds nothing to what is already in our cognitive unconscious..

American kindergartners readily learn Mandarin (See "Mastering Mandarin", San Francisco Chronicle, April 17, 2012). But it is almost impossible for adults to do so, probably because Mandarin has been rendered into English ("pin yin"). Adults just don't (or perhaps can't) listen.

BOOK REVIEW: Penguin Dictionary of Psychology (Part 2)

Declarative Knowledge and Procedural Knowledge

Dr. Reber defines "declarative knowledge" as "knowledge about the world that can be represented as consciously known, factual knowledge." He distinguishes this from "procedural knowledge," defined as "knowledge about how to do something." "Unlike declarative knowledge, procedural knowledge "lies outside an individual's realm of consciousness and might include knowing how to speak a language or how to tie a knot." Reber, Dictionary of Psychology, Third Edition, p. 381.

"Declarative knowledge" is acquired through "explicit learning". "Procedural knowledge" is acquired through "implicit learning."

BOOK REVIEW: Arthur S. Reber, Implicit Learning and Tacit Knowledge, An Essay

Science and the "Cognitive Unconscious"

It's very surprising that there is a scientific dispute as to whether the "cognitive unconscious" even exists, and that many scientists are preoccupied with trying to prove experimentally that it does exist.

About this controversy, see Arthur S. Reber,"Implicit Learning and Tacit Knowledge, An Essay on the Cognitive Unconscious," (188 pages), Oxford University Press (Clarendon Press), 1993.

The "cognitive unconscious" is not even unconscious. Perhaps it is thought to be unconscious because it doesn't come ready-equipped with words to describe its contents.

The truth is that the "cognitive unconscious" is the main component of "consciousness". We are always aware of this tacit body of knowledge and we spend most of our time trying to communicate what we 'see' in it. The very purpose of words is just to try to communicate the contents of the "cognitive unconscious". We ourselves try, often erroneously, to communicate this with words, and we have at our fingertips words from many thoughtful people of many past generations' attempts to describe their own cognitive unconsciousness.

In fact, we aren't really in the position of perceiving the "outside world" at all. The "cognitive unconscious" perceives the outside world. It has "a mind of its own". What we ourselves are conscious of is merely the "cognitive unconscious". We "see" the outside world through the prism of the "cognitive unconscious."

Arthur Reber and other advocates of the "cognitive unconscious" believe that this "unconscious" builds up its abstract knowledge completely unbeknownst to us. It is true that this building-up process is indeed unconscious and not subject to our control.

But we can induce it to build up. How? This is what Shh Tract is about.

Once we realize that what we are conscious of is not the "outside world" but only the (supposedly unconscious)"cognitive unconscious" (I call it the Conceptual Structure), we can clearly see that all we can do to help with our "perception of the outside world" is to get out of the way: to not get between the "cognitive unconscious" and the "outside world". We must develop the skill of just allowing the "cognitive unconscious" to do its job.

"Implicit learning" (learning by the "cognitive unconscious" can only take place when both implicit and explicit knowledge ("knowledge" in words) is suppressed and the "cognitive unconscious" can "see the outside world" completely anew, with "new eyes". The fact that we have the ability to momentarily suppress all our existing knowledge is what leads me to surmise that the "cognitive unconscious" is equipped with its own neural learning tract: "Shh Tract".

But what to make of a scientific dispute over the very existence of the Conceptual Structure?!!

BOOK REVIEW: Penguin Dictionary of Psychology

Professor Reber is the author of a Dictionary of Psychology

Here are a few entries:

"Implicit Learning": A term coined by A.S. Reber for learning that takes place largely independent of awareness of both the process of acquisition and the content of the knowledge so acquired. Material that has been learned in this fashion, often termed "procedural knowledge", can be used to guide behavior, make decisions and solve problems, although the individual is tyically unaware of the complex knowledge held that enables him or her to act in this fashion.

"Explicit Learning": Learning that takes place consciously and results in knowledge that is available to consciousness; learning of which one is aware.