Failure-driven Memory
Roger C. Schank · Cambridge University Press eBooks · 1999
At the root of our ability to learn is our ability to find the experience we have in our memory that is most like the experience we are currently processing. Most learning doesn't look like learning at all. For instance, consider a situation in which we drive down a road and remember to take the first right after the public library. We do not seem to be learning; we simply feel we're either following directions (if this is the first time we have taken this particular trip) or recalling (if we have made this trip before). But, in either case, we are learning. On the other hand, consider a situation in which someone gives us directions, we try to memorize them, and then say we have learned the way to a place. Because we have been socialized in a particular way, this feels like learning. Understanding why the former situation is learning (even if it doesn't seem like it) and the latter is not (even if it does seem so) is critical to understanding the nature of the comprehension process and its modification through experience. Memorizing is not learning in any real sense. Imagine you are a small child and your parent believes you should learn how to make toast. Your parent can sit you down and give you a lecture on the art of toasting, but this is probably not the best way to teach you.