Constructing the context through goals and schemata: top-down processes in comprehension and beyond

• Main Author: Marco eMazzone
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Frontiers Media S.A. 2015-05-01
• Series: Frontiers in Psychology
• Subjects: Mindreading; context; pragmatics; Schemas; Hierarchical representation
• Online Access: http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00651/full

My main purpose here is to provide an account of context selection in utterance understanding in terms of the role played by schemata and goals in top-down processing. The general idea is that information is organized hierarchically, with items iteratively organized in chunks – here called schemata – at multiple levels, so that the activation of any items spreads to schemata that are the most accessible due to previous experience. The activation of a schema, in turn, activates its other components, so as to predict a likely context for the original item. Since each input activates its own schemata, conflicting schemata compete with (and inhibit) each other, while multiple activations of a schema raise its likelihood to win the competition. There is therefore a double movement – with bottom-up activation of schemata enabling top-down prediction of other contextual components – triggered by multiple sources. Another claim of the paper is that goals are represented by schemata placed at the highest-levels of the executive hierarchy, in accordance with Fuster’s model of the brain as a hierarchically organized perception-action cycle. This account can be considered, in part at least, a development of ideas contained in Relevance Theory, though it may imply that some other claims of the theory are in need of revision. Therefore, a secondary purpose of the paper is a contribution to the analysis of that theory.