Theories of Pattern Recognition

“Humans are pattern-seeking animals and we are adept at finding patterns whether they exist or not” (adapted from Michael Shermer). Discuss knowledge questions raised by this idea in two areas of knowledge.

It can be asserted that humans are highly proficient at finding patterns and building knowledge upon them. Both shared and personal knowledge is typically divided into three categories: practical knowledge, knowledge by acquaintance and factual knowledge. The origins of them are simple: either knowledge that we gain ourselves or knowledge we acquire from other sources. It is important, however, to note that those do not imply the acquisition of knowledge. As the humanity advances forward, every next generation is smarter than the previous one, to a high extent due to the fact that knowledge is accumulated and passed down. I would claim that knowledge acquisition is a derivative of pattern-recognition, which is essential in knowledge production. To investigate this claim and to understand the nature of humans as pattern-seeking “mechanisms”, we’ll first have to examine knowledge patterns and evaluate their role, which leads to the following question: What is the role of pattern-recognition in the process of knowledge acquisition and production? The question, in essence, can be separated into two parts. First, we are going to consider the complexion of pattern recognition and its basis in natural sciences, next we’ll inspect the process of knowledge acquisition and production.

Get Help With Your Essay

If you need assistance with writing your essay, our professional essay writing service is here to help!
Find out more about our Essay Writing Service

Pattern-seeking is a form of knowledge acquisition which is inferred from the pattern-recognition abilities of animals and humans in particular. Pattern recognition describes a cognitive process that matches information from a stimulus with information retrieved from long-term, short-term or memory.[1] A number of different models of pattern recognition were cultivated.[2] First is the template matching, where, incoming information is compared to ‘templates’ of information stored in long term memory. This is what allows us to conclude that “X is just like Y”. In this case we can then proceed to treat X as Y. Prototype matching is similar to template matching except the match doesn’t have to be perfect. For instance, if a person sees a baby cow, he or she would know this is a cow (template matching) but he or she would also know it’s a mammal (prototype matching). Feature analysis means that the mind breaks down all incoming stimuli into individual features before processing the information. This model states that our pattern recognition process goes through four stages: detection, pattern dissection, feature comparison in memory, recognition. Face recognition would be an example of such a pattern.

Human sciences refer to the study social, cultural and biological aspects of human existence, which is meant to investigate and understand human behavior and includes a diverse range of disciplines: anthropology, economics, psychology, sociology. “Patternicity”, or the human tendency to search for meaningful patterns in their daily lives takes it origin in the development of human brain and such, which, of course, derived from basics animal instincts built over millions of years and served as a form of protection. Another name for that aspect of human behavior is associative learning, which is thoroughly studied in psychology and occurs occurs when something is learned based on a new stimulus. Most famous example of associative learning would be the Pavlov’s experiment, which is classified as operational conditioning, meaning that after a continuous trial of triggers and rewards, the subject memorizes the pattern.[3] By contrast, repeated instances without any reward will lead to the extinction of the pattern. Moreover, operational conditioning refers to the trials with both rewards and punishment that lead to more concrete result with learned behavior, such as in B.F. Skinner’s experiment. Associative learning approach is often used in the classroom management, which I’ve personally been a witness of, both positive and negative reinforcements. The example of a former would be a verbal and grade reward for effort and hard work, while latter might include removing points for the late assignment hand in.

As a counterclaim, pattern-recognition only distorts our knowledge acquisition and may lead to the false knowledge production. Although it patterns sometimes help to restore confidence, our brains did not evolve to a point where true and false knowledge patterns can be recognized independently, therefore either peer-review or the reliance on science justification is needed. Such deviation in pattern-recognition is know to be the cognitive bias, highly studied in psychology, most famous representation of which is confirmation bias, which is described as the tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms one’s preexisting beliefs or hypotheses, while giving disproportionately less consideration to alternative possibilities.[4] Confirmation bias can lead investors on the financial markets to be overconfident, ignoring evidence that their strategies will lose money. A result of such behavior is the infamous housing market crash of 2008, which exactly happened because of the people’s ignorance to look beyond the past result of the market and reassure their claims based on the updated knowledge, as both lenders and borrower were involved into high-risk subprime mortgages. Another field of human sciences to be concerned with various biases, behavioral economics, is explaining why financial market participants make irrational systematic errors conflicting the assumption of rational market participants. Such errors affect prices and returns, creating market inefficiencies, which in turn lead to non-rational decision making, or wrong knowledge production in other words.[5]

Language as a way of knowing is the ability to acquire and use complex systems of communication, particularly the human ability to do so, and a language is any specific example of such a system.[6] Language acquisition, as an example of knowledge acquisition, is probably the most important and mostly seen in infants, whose brain is like a sponge that soaks up the information around, while learning, and then after a careful analysis it uses different pieces of information to construct new knowledge. As a young child, we gain knowledge of our first language through the passive act of listening to others. We then actively practice our speech and communication skills based upon what we have observed. This practice continues throughout our lives. At the same time, the threat of fallacies persists, not only in form of thinking, but language in the most instances, such as equivocation or amphiboly.

In the case of natural sciences, however, hypothesis and theory are complemented by a required experiment, which either proves them or rejects, based on the collected data and further drawn conclusions. Natural Sciences refer to the branch of science which deals with the physical world, such as physics, chemistry, geology and biology.[7]As Michael Shermer claimed once[8], “our brains are belief engines”, meaning that those could be perceived as pattern-recognition machines that connect the dots and create meaning out of the patterns that humans tend to see in nature. When it is the pattern becomes justified based on an observation or experiment, we have learned something valuable about the environment from which we can make predictions that are crucial in terms survival and reproduction. As a human race, we are known successors of those most biologically successful at finding patterns, also know as associative learning and explained above, and it is fundamental to all animal behavior. However, the judgments that take origin in the results of the observation are highly subjective in each case and therefore may lead to false knowledge production.

Sense perception, highly involved in the observation experiments in both natural and human sciences, is another way of knowing that significantly affects our judgments based on the cognitive abilities. Although it is the basic of human approach to knowledge acquisition, as, the senses, such as hearing, vision and smell are the building blocks of knowledge. Apophenia, the term coined by German neurologist and psychiatrist Klaus Conrad (1905-1961), is the human tendency to identify meaningful patterns of random and unrelated phenomena, such as, for example, the ringing of a phone while in shower or associating clouds with objects in real life. That paradox may lead to colored and regularly wrong judgments, which result in the production of inaccurate knowledge

Memory is a way of knowing applied in the occasion in which the knower recalls past experiences, in order to repossess knowledge within their mind that has already has been acquired. It provides the fundamental storage, which facilitates all of our experiences through ways of knowing and therefore allows to build knowledge. Neuroscience, which is another branch of natural sciences, has concluded so far that long-term consists of explicit and implicit memory, with the former mainly operating the factual knowledge, such as facts and events, and the latter responsible for non-associative learning such as habituation, dishabituation and sensitization, which are crucial to knowledge production.[9] Despite that, memory of humans tends to fade with time and thus may deviate, leading to the wrong conclusions and confusing the mixture of facts.

In conclusion, based on all the findings and analysis above, it can be argued with the complete assurance that even though pattern-recognition initiates knowledge acquisition and thus leads to knowledge production, it is not always perfect and therefore should be relied upon with caution. Involving a number of areas of knowledge, most importantly human sciences and natural sciences, and also multiple ways of knowledge, pattern recognition to a great extent forms a basis for our knowledge, underlying our thought process and enabling us to observe and question the world around by reasoning. With the utilization of memory and sense perception, knowledge, provided that it’s accurate and interpreted correctly, is developed further and built upon previous, leading to progression of human development.

Word Count: 1571

[1] Eysenck, Michael W., and Mark T. Keane. Cognitive Psychology: A Student’s Handbook. London: Psychology, Taylor & Francis Group, 2015. Print.

[2] Hillman, Keith. “Pattern Recognition and Your Brain.” Psychology24.org. N.p., 21 Mar. 2016. Web. 01 Mar. 2017. .

[3] Writer, Leaf Group. “What Is Associative Learning in Psychology?” Education – Seattle PI. Seattle PI, 28 Feb. 2014. Web. 01 Mar. 2017. .

[4] Plous, Scott. The Psychology of Judgment and Decision Making. New York: Mcgraw-Hill Higher Education, 2007. Print.

[5] Lin, Tom C. W. “A Behavioral Framework for Securities Risk.” By Tom C. W. Lin :: SSRN. N.p., 16 Apr. 2012. Web. 01 Mar. 2017. .

[6] Baird, Robert Alex. “Mind’s Inventions: Language and Writing.” World Mysteries Blog. N.p., 17 Feb. 2016. Web. 01 Mar. 2017. .

[7]“The Natural Sciences.” Theoryofknowledge.net. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Mar. 2017. .

[8] Shermer, Michael. “Michael Shermer» Patternicity.” The Official Site of Bestselling Author Michael Shermer. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Mar. 2017. .

[9] Eysenck, Michael W., and Mark T. Keane. Cognitive Psychology: A Student’s Handbook. London: Psychology, Taylor & Francis Group, 2015. Print.