Re: SUO: Re: Logic & Programming Languages
Hi John and Leo,
At 09:03 24/07/01 -0400, John sowa wrote :
>Leo,
>
>I agree. There is a major difference between being able to do
>something and being able to explain verbally how one does it.
>A typical example is tying a shoestring
But a major problem is also to know how to interpret-to wit how the
researcher can interpret - what the participants have said or produced.
At the beginning of my researches on verbal reports, I made a study (in
french) about 'how to say how to tie a reefknot' at the children, how to
say verbaly, but also how to say graphicaly with drawings.
Drawings were generally composed of a succession of separate graphic units
where evident graphic oppositions (for example a straight line crossed with
another zigzags one) suggested a functional role to each of both strings
(the one with a driving role, the other one patient's role). Moreover
several graphic units did not correspond to a step of tying the knot, but
to a sort of preparation before the knot ( two parallel lines), or a finish
after a stage of the knot (pulling the strings hands + arrow indicating the
movement).
In a general way my works on the drawing learnt me to characterize formally
(by means of lines on the page) the organization of the units of treatment
and their contextual meaning. It is this method that I kept later for my
verbal analysis.
With verbal productions, I noticed that some words had the function to
recreate the effect of graphic units at verbal level, and so to demarcate
the information the treatment of which recovers from the same unit or chunk:
- With the positioning of locations :
Example a : I cross the strings, I take the right one and I cross it over
the other one.... (The thread was effectively to the right)
in french: je croise mes ficelles, je prends la ficelle de droite je la
passe par dessus...
Example b: I cross the strings, that of the right-hand side I cross it over
the other one. (The thread was to the left, but it was to the right before
the crossing.
je croise mes ficelles, celle de droite je la passe par dessus....
In exa, the location is positioned after the crossing, in exb it is before.
- With the connectors which demarcate units and organize them either by
juxtaposing them (for example so then, later; in french: alors, après), or
by hierarchizing them (ex and, then; in french: et, puis)
>Some comments:
>
>Leo Obrst wrote:
> >
> > I would suggest that we make a distinction between consciousness (of
> > inference) and inference. I am not convinced that what we
> > introspect/reflect on as an inference process is the only kind. In fact,
> > I doubt it; I think that most inference is in fact unconscious (but
> > because "unconscious" is a loaded term, perhaps it's better to say
> > "unaware of").
>
>That is also true of computer systems. A theorem proving program,
>for example, could certainly be called "logic based", but unless it
>has been explicitly developed with an explanation facility, it cannot
>comment on how it uses logic.
>
> > I think in general that we (humans) are notoriously
> > deficient at describing introspection our own mental processes except
> > in very general terms. Many of us will say "That's not how I do it" when
> > via reflection it doesn't seem that an inference process has taken
> > place. We remember the original "pattern" and our
> > action/response/conclusion. There is no formal sequence of modus ponens,
> > we think.
>
>Yes. Typical examples are the comments by fluent speakers of
>highly inflected languages about the case systems. They certainly
>don't think "now I am going to use the dative case" when they
>use the dative case.
>
In fact inferences are drawn from one representation to another one. The
problem for the researcher is to understand and to explicit
how to draw out these representations (Let's see my comments about knots)
Sincerely yours
Josiane Caron-Pargue