The most elegant facet of the theory of evolution by natural selection is also its most challenging. By proposing a process by which complex life could evolve in response to the environment, it removes the need for an intelligence guiding the process. This is elegant because when we explain complex life by invoking a creator, we are left with the question of who or what created the creator.
Yet, it is a challenging idea for those who believe in God. Life, a phenomenon that was once inexplicable without God, no longer needs a creator.
There are those who reject evolution because of this, there are those who have come to an accommodation with it — Why should God have to act in a supernatural way? If God exists, surely he acts through processes such as evolution — and there are those who see evolution as an affirmation of their atheism.
I imagine my readers have a variety of positions and exactly where you sit is not important to this argument.
And of course, powerful as the theory of evolution by natural selection is, it is still a scientific theory — a model — subject to change and revision. Dylan Wiliam is fond of quoting the statistician George Box on models: “All models are wrong, but some are useful.”
The 2015 Pixar movie, Inside Out, proposes a model of the mind that is useful because it is wrong. The plot of Inside Out revolves around Riley, a young girl, who moves from Minnesota to San Francisco. Most of the action takes place inside Riley’s head, as five miniature human-like figures, who represent Riley’s emotions, pull levers and press buttons in order to control what Riley does.
If Riley is being controlled by these figures then what is controlling the figures? And what is controlling whatever entity it is that is controlling the figures? And so on. It is a similar problem to the one of who created a creator.
You may not spend much time worrying about the Inside Out model of the mind because you view it as naïve. The childishness of it reflects back childish ideas we have probably all had at some stage as we contemplate the nature of being. The Inside Out model has no real bearing on scientific models of the mind, right?
Cognitive science has not settled on one accepted model of the mind in the way that biologists have settled on a model of evolution. Yet most scientists would accept some role for a long-term store of knowledge — long-term memory — and a shorter term store where new information is processed — working memory.
But there is a problem with working memory. It represents what we are paying attention to at any given moment — our conscious thoughts. In 1974, when Baddeley and Hitch presented their influential model of working memory, it consisted of three components — one for processing visual information, one for processing auditory information and a central executive for directing attention and controlling these subsystems.
Can you spot the catch? If the central executive controls working memory then what controls the central executive? Is there a central executive inside the central executive? If so, what controls that? It’s the same problem we have with the Inside Out model only less obvious.
Baddeley and Hitch’s model was a step forward and it explains results that suggest we process visual and auditory information in parallel. It seems to be inspired by computers, with the central executive equivalent to a computer’s central processing unit. Yet, a central processing unit runs a programme written by humans and so, ultimately, humans are telling the computer what to do — except in the interesting case of machine learning and ‘evolved’ programs where the program iterates in response to externally imposed conditions.
Due to the paradoxical nature of a central executive, cognitive load theory removes the concept from its model of the mind. Instead, cognitive load theory proposes that the functions of a central executive can be explained by an interaction between long-term memory and the external environment.
In the title of this post, when I asked you to not think of a white bear, I predicted you would think of a white bear. Your attention was drawn to this image by a stimulus from the environment — the title of this post — interacting with a schema about bears that you possess in long-term memory. No little people or central executives are needed.
Just like evolution removes the need for a God to explain complex life, cognitive load theory’s model of the mind removes the need for some kind of ghost in the machine to explain the human mind. You may find this challenging.
It also suggests that knowledge in long-term memory is much more than a metaphorical set of books in a library. We use it to think with. We use it to direct our attention. Although most of the schemas in long-term memory that people think with will have been developed when young or through the processes of socialisation, the ones we develop in school are still important. They do not just add to what students know but shape the way they think. That implies teachers have a significant responsibility when they choose what concepts to teach.
According to cognitive load theory, both evolution and the human mind are ‘natural information processing systems’. They possess a store of information that changes over time in response to constraints imposed by the environment. No other agents are needed to direct these affairs.
How nice to see a reference to the late Dan Wegner's work on thought suppression. I had the good fortune of getting to know Dan when he spent a decade at the same university where I was on the faculty.
Of course, in discussing not thinking of a white bear, Wegner et al. were riffing on Dostoevsky's and Tolstoy's observations a century earlier. But rather than marveling at the literary allusions in Wegner et al., I want to expand on the analysis about endless processions of gods behind gods, homunculi nested within homunculi, like matryoshka dolls.
Wegner examined a related topic in his (2002) book, The Illusion of Conscious Will. In it he patiently shows how it is likely that we humans have mistakenly presumed that our thoughts cause our actions. It is more likely the case that the thoughts are by-products of actions. In William James's formulation, we are afraid because we run, not that we run because were afraid (maybe running from a white bear?).
So it is, too, with Skinner's (1974) behaviorism: Mental "events" are epiphenomena that delude us from examining the specific relationships between environments and behavior. We construct these fantastic castles about thinking, memory, and such...and, sadly, we then seek refuge in those castles.
Skinner, B. F. (1974). About behaviorism. Knopf.
Wegner, D. M. (2002). The illusion of conscious will. MIT Press.
Wegner, D. M. Schneider, D. J., Carter, S., & White, T. (1987). Paradoxical effects of thought suppression. Journal of Personaligy and Social Psychology, 53(1), 5-13.
Hi everyone,
I actually think Cognitive Load Theory is a massive breakthrough in a couple of ways. Its full ramifications for individuals and society yet to be realized.
One is our understanding of consciousness. As John Sweller said in his CIS article (2021) on inquiry learning: "We only are conscious of the contents of working memory and indeed, consciousness can be defined as the contents of working memory". That's huge, right.
Second, discussions, research and understandings (popular and scholarly) concerning intelligence and IQ. CLT is a game changer. It undermines the primacy placed on fluid intelligence and processing speed. If teaching and self-teaching are based on principles of minimizing cognitive load, the significance placed on IQ tests, such as Raven's matrices, go out the door. Anybody can contribute intellectually to any field if they're willing to putting in the work.