On the
relation of frame and schema
Our experience of reality is not perfect. We may have misperceptions of reality. It’s really
important to understand we’re not perceiving reality, Our brains unconsciously
bend our perception of reality to meet our desires or expectations and
compensate our limits as humanbeings. And they fill in gaps using our past
experiences. Illusions are caused
by frames in our minds, either physiological or psychological.
Frames and schemata are found
to be basic elements in the operation of our brains. There are many texts that explain frames and
schemata. When I studied them I noticed
a better understanding may easily be achieved if the subject is studied with
the view of a computer system architecture.
For example in their article “Schemas and Frames”, Michael Lee Wood, Dustin S. Stoltz, Justin Van
Ness, and Marshall A. Taylor define frame as:
“Frames are situational
assemblages of material objects (including bodies and settings) that evoke
certain responses from individuals, in part by activating particular sets of
schemas.” [1]
In computer
architecture terms:
1-
Frame is a
collection of objects that form a condition
2-
Frame is a trigger
3- Frame
triggers (prepares a partition) a context and (deploys an object) a schema in
it when the frame’s condition is fulfilled
A frame may
trigger an identity/an object. For
example a teacher frame may deploy a teacher object which is semantically
inherited from a person object and may have related instantiation as “my
teachers” etc.
For example an
interaction of (person, bends his head, your teacher)
---> return his salute.
1-
If a
person bends his head when looking at you
2-
If you
know that person is your teacher
3-
You
return his salute
May cause
events very roughly:
1-
(an event frame is triggered)--->respond
schema
2-
(respond schema:what
action) ===> visualFrame
3-
visualFrame
---> personOBJ
4-
(personOBJ ===>
whoFrame )
5-
(whoFrame ===>
myteacherOBJ )
6-
visualFrame ===>
doesWhatOBJ
7-
doesWhatOBJ
--->behaviourOBJ
8-
behaviourOBJ:giveSaluteMETHOD
Here
visualFrame triggers both the personOBJ and the doesWhatOBJ. In
return both of these objects call frames to find who and what answers. This requires a LOOP behaviour from the
frames limited with success or failure.
How is a frame
executed?
A frame becomes
part of a loop action which checks its condition repeatedly. When a frame is deployed the frame condition
is iteratively checked till
1-
it is
fulfilled with success
2-
it
fails till the end of available data
3-
a certain
time expires
4-
a
higher priority frame or task has to be deployed. This will either cancel the current frame or
causes it to sleep – a wait condition.
A frame can
not work more than once in the same moment.
1-
Rabbit-duck
illusion [2]
2-
You can
see two different animals but you cannot see both of them concurrently
3-
If you
practice you may see both as half animals of a picture but not completely
concurrently.
More than
one frame may work at the same time.
1-Driving a
car uses many frames that are called by automatic processes.
2-You may listen to music at the
same time when suddenly your visualFrame causes you to react.
There are
builtin frames that are deployed automatically (visual frames) and there are
learned frames (driving related) that are deployed manually or automatically(walking,
eating).
Vigilance/precaution
etc. are frames that are deployed in relevant contexts. These frames prepare a context or prepare a
partition of objects that may be triggered according to the character of
emergency. A context provides the frames
related to objects/methods in it by a continuously iterated loop.
“Frames are explicitly
cognitive objects that individual actors possess; they are “‘schemata of
interpretation’
that enable individuals
‘to locate, perceive, identify, and label’ occurrences within their life space
and “persistent patterns
of cognition, interpretation, and presentation . . . by which symbol-handlers
routinely organize discourse” [3]
Frames themselves
are objects hence they are interpretetive schemas. But when we say frame most likely we mention
an instance of it. The frame object is
named as “ models of frames” and the related frames are instances of it. Frames are interpretative schemata. Frames and schemata are instances of objects,
so they both have attributes and methods.
But frames have much more fixed and dedicated character. For example they have only one collection
which defines their condition where as an object may have many collections in
it. And a schema may have many related collections in it.
Frames shall
reside in a different location than schemata or normal objects. They are continuously checked in a loop where
as a schema is deployed once except in the case of recursion. This leads to the possibility that frames may
be deployed/located in somewhere such as Thalamus whereas schemata may reside
in outer cortex???. But it is certain
that they are deployed/controlled by different functioning parts of the brain. This remains to be inspected by objective tests.
REFERENCES:
[1]
Michael Lee Wood, Dustin S. Stoltz, Justin Van Ness, and Marshall A. Taylor,
“Schemas and Frames”,
Sociological
Theory 2018, Vol. 36(3) 244–261 © American Sociological Association
[2]
rabbit-duck illusion, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit%E2%80%93duck_illusion
[3] Snow, David A., E. Burke Rochford, Steven K. Worden, and
Robert D. Benford. “Frame Alignment
Processes, Micromobilization, and Movement Participation.” 1986 American
Sociological Review 51(4):464-81.
