34. Practical prejudice

Often, categorization is more than a simple comparison with a prototypical feature. Following Shank and Abelson, I employ the notion of a script to model categories, including types of actions. A script is a network of connected nodes that represent component activities (in case of a practice) or notions (in case of a concept). In an activity a connection between components may indicate a sequence in time, one-sided or mutual dependence, the use of pooled resources, a relation of authority (supervision, control), etc. In a concept or theory it may indicate logical implication, conditionals, etc.

The classic example is that of a restaurant, which can be seen as a simple sequence of nodes of entry, seating, selecting, ordering, eating, paying and leaving. Each component activity in turn has subscripts for different ways of performing the component activity. For example, in the payment node one may pay cash, by cheque, credit card, or debit card, and each has its own script. There is also a superscript, in which the restaurant is part of a wider script of location, traffic, parking, energy supply, etc.

If something happens but one does not have the appropriate script to absorb it, as part of a culture, one is at a loss about what to do. This is part of the problem of integration of foreigners: they cannot properly ‘read’ events.

In the brain, scripts are embodied in networks of neuronal connections and patterns of neuronal firing. In perception, one subconsciously tries to assimilate sense impressions into existing scripts, and when a fit occurs, the script is ‘triggered’, unless no scripts are detected in which it ‘fits’, in which case it is ignored or there fails to be perception. Scripts can also be triggered internally, without perception, as in dreams or thought.

This entails that perception is always already an interpretation, modelled here as assimilation into one or more scripts. When a slot is found in a script for the perception to fit in, the whole of the script is tentatively attributed to what is perceived, even when not all is perceived. In philosophy and psychology this is known as Gestalt. This greatly helps identification and fast and coherent response to perception, which serves survival of the self.

It also entails prejudice, invalid attribution. A gesture towards a pocket is falsely interpreted as the reach for a gun. Scripts serve to identify an individual as having a place in one or more scripts. When a perception entails simultaneous activation of several scripts, this can lead to tentative connections between them that are strengthened or weakened in subsequent perception and action. I propose that the process models the sense making discussed in the preceding items of this blog: something is recognized as belonging to a category by trying to fit features of it into a script.

Can one call a script embodied in the brain a ‘mental representation’? Perhaps, but it is not a simple ‘reflection’ but part of an active process of mental construction.