2020수능특강 영어 17강 본문

17강

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Looking for patterns works because our memories are organized in terms of what psychologists call 'schema'.  A schema is a familiar pattern of relationships stored in your memory.  That way they form memories so strongly linked that they are recalled more or less as a single unit.  This is so powerful that it doesn't just influence your way of remembering lists, it actually affects your entire way of thinking.  In one experiment, chess grandmasters and masters were tested against ordinary chess players to see how accurately they could remember the position of 20 to 25 chess pieces placed randomly on a board after glancing at the board for 5 to 10 seconds.  The masters and ordinary players were pretty similar in being able to remember the places of only 6 pieces. Yet if the pieces were arranged in the form of a game (unknown to anyone), the grandmasters and masters could suddenly remember all the positions, while the ordinary players could still manage only 6. It was clear that this was not simply a memory feat—it was due to the grandmasters' and masters' ability to see the positions as a single chunk or schema. It is clear that the more you develop schema, or patterns, the better you'll remember things. And if you can reduce complex inputs to simple chunks, you'll find you can think about them much more clearly and effectively. As a general rule, if you ever find yourself forgetting anything, it is not because your brain is declining or your memory is receding. It's simply because you are not using the correct memory technique to help you store and retrieve the information.

 

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Novelty compels both humans and animals to engage with the unfamiliar. Indeed, our strong desire for novelty has evolutionary roots, improving our survival odds by keeping us alert to both friends and threats in our environment. As new parents quickly learn, when given a choice, babies consistently look at, listen to, and play with unfamiliar things. One of my favorite moments from early parenthood was when I watched my infant son notice his hands for the first time. His discovery stands out as a metaphor for learning: His interest in what those strange, wonderful appendages could do was his first step toward controlling them. The preference for novelty is an efficient way for immature cognitive systems to process information, helping babies cope with changes to their environment before releasing their inner explorer. Interestingly, in human genetics, a preference for novelty has been linked to the migration of early humans to the far reaches of the earth. Recent studies have shown that human groups that migrated the farthest from Africa had more of the genes linked to novelty seeking. That is, the people who traveled the farthest from home may have had some biological propensity to experience mysterios new places. And yet, while we are born with a strong drive to seek novelty, this drive fades over time. As we grow older, other desires take over, like wanting more predictability. The organizations we build and join reflect this reality: paychecks at the same time each week or month, evaluations according to established processes, jobs that involve a known set of activities.

 

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You've no doubt heard the old saying: “when the going gets tough, the tough go shopping!” That is precisely what bacteria do when they find themselves in deep trouble. They go shopping for useful genes that can help to get them out of the mess. There comes a time in the life of any organism or organization, when it has to try something completely different. In a sporting team, it has been called throwing away the game plan, and this is exactly what hypermutation involves. When a bacterial colony is in a critical situation―when survival is on the line—something very strange happens―the bacteria suddenly start mutating at an extraordinarily rapid rate. In so doing, they are consulting the microbial lending library, hoping that they can come up with a mutation that might get them out of their crisis. Starving E. coli colonies (hyper‑)mutate at a rate one thousand times greater than that which would normally be the case in a well‑fed colony. You can even find certain hypermutators within a normal or well‑fed colony, sitting there, ready to spring into a hypermutational mode at the first sign of serious stress. As Frank T. Vertosick so humorously put it: “these hypermutators are the Van Goghs of the microbial world―somewhat insane, but infinitely creative”.

 

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Social sanctions vary in degree of formalization. In most stable associations there are highly formal procedures, such as ceremonies for honoring those whose services are believed to have contributed to the well‑being of the membership and for the discredit or exclusion of those whose activities have been considered harmful. In our society, for example, there are courts of law and means of judging criminals which are so complex that only specialists can understand them. Some sociologists attach great importance to such highly formalized sanctions and have even defined the organized group as one in which the social structure is protected and reinforced through formal sanctions. Such norms are without doubt controls on deviant behavior, but for most people the less formal sanctions, the spontaneous displays of approval or disapproval, prove more effective. Those who are about to violate some rule are often stopped short by the show of displeasure on the part of others. Ridicule and gossip are especially effective. In some cases deviant parties may be excluded informally, even when they continue to retain membership in the group. Among the most effective of the informal sanctions is the deprivation of mutual services, the refusal of others to honor the claims of the violator's role. Since roles consist of reciprocating claims and obligations, they cannot be maintained without the cooperation of others in complementary roles. When a person speaks to a colleague, he ordinarily has a minimal claim upon him to respond in some way. Others may, however, refuse to live up to their obligation to be polite as a way of indicating their disapproval.