Representation

Attending

The function of the Attending (sensing) sub-system is selectively to gather or generate information to feed into the reflection system for processing. It needs to be selective because we are unlikely to be able to process all the possible external and internal information that is bombarding us at each moment. The Attending subsystem maintains our focus on dealing with the current task and avoiding unnecessary distractions.

The information gathered or generated may be: 

• perception — information from our various senses about the changing state of the external world (exteroception) and the changing state of our body and mind (interoception)

• memory — information recalled and reconstructed from past experiences that have already been processed and stored, where the Comparison and Causation systems have identified those memories to be relevant to the current circumstances

• imagination — information generated from simulated experiences, which might include alternative versions of past events (counterfactuals) or projections of possible future scenarios

In business-as-usual mode, it uses causation and comparison elements of the active meaning schema to direct our attention towards the aspects of our experience that the schema predicts are likely to occur and likely to be relevant to our goals. This means that we're paying less attention to the things that our meaning schemas tell us are random noise, not important enough to bother with or are of no consequence. 

If we perceive something unexpected in the foreground or background (a prediction error or discrepancy), then our attention may be switched to finding external or internal information that helps us resolve the issue through assimilation or accommodation.

Attending discrepancies

Discrepancies linked to the Attending sub-system could result from one or more of the following (although the root cause may be failings in other parts of the system).

• Inattentional blindness — failing to notice something because your attention is focused on a particular task elsewhere (not perceiving information that is there)

• Pareidolia — perceiving false order and structure in chaos (perceiving more information than is actually there)

• Hallucination — generating the perception something that does not exist, which could include false memories (perceiving information that is not there)

• Figure-ground confusion — not being able to differentiate between signal and noise (being unable to work out what to attend to). This could involve perceiving it all as noise, all as signal or perceiving signal as noise (and vice versa).

• Confirmation bias — only paying attention to information that aligns with the predictions of your meaning schemas

• Availability heuristic — mistaking information or memories that are easily accessible for something that is relevant

• Priming — where recent exposure to something makes you alert to the same or connected information (see also frequency illusion)

Encoding

The function of the Encoding (expressing) system is to translate information from one form to another so that it is suitable for whatever next happens to that information. It converts information inputs from the Attending system into a form that is suitable for processing by the reflection system. It might be translating perceptions or memories into signals that can be processed by other parts of the brain. It might be converting concrete experiences into abstract concepts for cognitive manipulation. It might be updating our meaning schemas with new information. 

In addition it might be converting the outputs of our reflection system into words that can be used to communicate those concepts to others or actions that enable us to achieve our goals. It might be converting predictions of the current meaning schema into nerve signals that control eye-movements. In essence, the encoding subsystem generates the labels and symbols that we associate with various aspects of our experience, whether those symbols are internal neural codes, abstract conceptual representations, spoken or written words, or the motor commands that drive our behaviour. It is the mechanism by which our internal world can be represented and shared with the external one and vice versa.

In reflective mode, the Encoding sub-system may be tasked with finding alternative ways of representing the information  to reduce the discrepancy by addressing any ambiguity, misinterpretation or loss of nuance.

Encoding discrepancies

Discrepancies linked to the Encoding sub-system could result from:

• Information loss — where certain details or nuance are not preserved in the translation, for example when the brain compresses information or generalises

• Semantic ambiguity — symbols that could be interpreted differently depending on context (see the jingle-jangle fallacy and fallacies of ambiguity) 

• Misinformation effect — allowing more recent information to change the accuracy of previous memories

• Reification — treating an abstract construct as if it were a real thing

• Metaphorical infection — if you borrow symbolic representation from another domain and bring with it misleading or irrelevant associations 

• Value-laden language — describing or giving names to things (or people) in ways that contain inherent biases or value judgements (see naturalistic fallacy)