For message design class, I read a chapter about why people make mistakes. Donald Norman, Design of Everyday Things, discussed the basic cognitive reasons about why errors and mistakes happen. Very fascinating!
As part of the discussion he introduced the connectivist theory about how information is organized and stored in memory, which results in knowledge or experience being stored in "similar" and "exception" categories. Information that we experience and interpret as similar to prior knowledge/experience get "mushed" together such that the different parts are not stored. Information that is perceived as "different enough" or unique get stored separately. The similar category of experience gets more weight/value in the mind, and the the exception categories get less weight or value (because there are few of them). This means that when you access information to explain something, diagnose or solve a problem, your brain tends to go with the more heavily weighted "similar" information first. Apparently some sort of comparison of the new against the old takes place. The brain tends to ignore the lesser valued "exceptional" category of prior knowledge even when THAT information is applicable. The brain uses the less detailed and heavily weighted information during recall and can result in mistakes.
Gee, did I understand that correctly?
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