Why do people have different interpretations for a common situation written on a sheet of paper?

Hi David,

What a nice question! The reason is that people draw upon their background and experiences to interpret information. For instance, when I see a recipe for strawberry shortcake that says 1 cup of strawberries, one angel food cake, and whipped cream, I think, "Give me a break, I don't have time to whip up an angel food cake, separating all those eggs, and then what do I do with the leftover yolks. And, besides I don't have heavy cream in the house to whip, and strawberries are out of season."

However, my daughter-in-law seeing the same recipe, takes the strawberries and the Dream Whip out of the freezer to thaw and sends my son to the Shoprite Bakery to buy an angel food cake and, voila, dessert is served!

Gwen

The interpretations are informed by associations to our previous experiences, thoughts, etc... Your associations differ from mine.

Interesting...Thanks a lot Gwen and Yaron for the wonderful opinions shared...Your opinions are well noted and very much appreciated. I however would like to know from you Gwen based on "background and experiences" phrase in your first two lines, how would you explain differences in interpretation between two groups of persons with similar experiences and from same disciplinary background. For example, two economists (both with 5-years experience in a specific area of specialization) who share mostly contrasting views on a common issue presented for example as a line in a paper.

David, I think economists more than those in any other discipline are apt to view every issue from the standpoint of whatever "school of thought" they subscribe to. However, it seems that very few respectable economists still believe solely in the "invisible hand of the marketplace" and concede that inequality in terms of access to information means that some government intervention is necessary to stem predatory behavior in the marketplace. Nonetheless, Wikipedia contains a nice summation of the various schools of thought, throughout the ages, here: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schools_of_economic_thought>

On October 26, 2013 in a post addressing an RG question by Obaid Khan with respect to the possibility of an interest-free economy, I gave my opinion (for what it is worth) of various economists and their schools of thought and you will find it here: <https://www.researchgate.net/post/What_is_the_potential_for_an_interest-free_economy> Since I have a couple of posts in response to Obaid's question, look for the one dated October 26th, which is rather lengthy.

Thank you, David, for being interested in my opinion even though I am not an economist. If nothing else, my opinion will draw the ire of enough real economists that you should get some real action on this question shortly!

Gwen

I can't thank you enough Gwen for the opinion shared.....You've more than expressed yourself as a natural economist, which in itself is surely a plus...Your suggestions are well noted and very much appreciated.

Hi David

When we ask two groups why each has a different way of interpreting written material in common, we are presuming groups with similar drifts of experience internally and variant externally (in reference to the other group), and thus as much as compel an answer based on such experiences shared versus not shared.

But when we take a given individual as against another individual at random, we are looking, logically, to more merely than assumed shared/not-shared backgrounds. Just as individuals can be expected to vary in their reactions to psychoactive pharmaceuticals, we can reasonably ask whether biological factors are ever at work when presenting the same written material at which variant interpretations result. While experience and background can be assumed to play into such differences, of course, we still can ask, and should ask, to what extent biological differences at an individual level -- or shared biological differences within groups -- can account for differences.

One way to observe such phenomena relies on observations of games or other activities that unwittingly restrict the ways in which we bring information to a given input. Thus the exercise of presenting a Rorschach figure (seemingly meaningless blotches of an abstract character) can suggest to a clinician characteristics not only of background but of psychic dispositions to interact in certain ways. Anthropologists of a certain school of though once used these tests to help determine what were considered "modal" or generalizable traits of a groups of people. Psychiatrists use them still to determine tendencies of mechanisms that we utilize to interpret our world and in particular our cultures and personal relationships to it.

From the vantage of biology, the primary factor that is most relevant to such methods is a primitive pair of mechanisms that remained vital to evolving organisms. Stendhal (On Love) was a brilliant Frenchman who tried to explain love and infatuation in terms of what he called "crystallization", by which he meant what a theorist in behavior will describe as interactions between "projections" and "identifications".

Every psychologist knows these concepts and applies them similarly, if more broadly, than Stendhal. What most psychologists do not do, however, is place these two curious biological interlocutors in still broader biological contexts that would give far more meaning and relevance to how they really work for us, by which I mean in ways that can also account for the very phenomenon that you, David, inquire of.

Now a theorist of behavior (moi) will suggest some parallels whose application can take on generalizable features that make their utility expand greatly. Thus "identification" is a process that brings to awareness an EXPOSURE, that is, a state of mind recognizing a stimulus as relevant to it in some manner that will typically be interpreted in terms of safe/dangerous, good/bad, and the like. Whereas the "projection", says such theorists, describes a naturally occurring reaction of the brain-mind to the identification. Thus when we "project" upon someone we are reacting to an exposure that has generated a linkage of putative meaning to someone, the same someone who is now interpreted in regard of that projection.

And these projections (both representing the originating identifications or, in turn offering themselves as grist for a secondary identification, and then a secondary projection, and so on) largely account for how and why experiences, both shared and not shared, influence our interpretations of common stimuli.

Without actually intending to, researchers have to all intents and purposes shown that what the theorist calls "identifications" tend to markedly predominate in the right hemisphere (regardless language placement), and projections in the left. And because we know that projections and identifications lead to one another, we can assume the commisural tracts are the anatomical means of delivering them hither and yon, leading us to ask where the assimilated results are given "meaning".

You would think such curiosities would generate interest if only because the projections associated with mental illness are but exaggerated examples of the same processes, and so the drugs responding should be evaluated to see if their primary influence is hemispherically relevant. But of course that is a bit of an aside from the question.

But because there are many generalized and specific factors that activate these processes, and because drift potentials of these processes posses memory capacity and reflect motivational calibrations, we are led to further appreciate how universal, how omnipresent, are these two modalities that so influence our thoughts and tendencies. Most all of these are subconscious, so that when we observe the influence of these processes it is not uncommon that the triggering phenomena will be precisely such as David has inquired after.

I hope that was a clear enough explanation and that it wasn't overly verbose. But I am confident that it in fact addresses much of the content of your question.

As other have stated, it relates to different perspectives that people have based on their backgrounds For example, an (Artefactual) social constructivist perspective argues that while reality exists, it is something we can never fully grasp as we are all condition by our preconceived biases. Therefore, we all view the same piece of paper through different social lenses (although people with similar training/backgrounds might view the same piece of paper in similar ways). Knowledge creation therefore is a discursive process and some of the more taken-for-granted knowledge in society can be linked to hegemonic perspectives, not indisputable facts. Try reading some works by David Demeritt or Tim Ingold for more discussion about this.

Dear David , it's a wonderful question!

There are many interpretations, and more or less I agree with most of the opinions expressed by the experts above. But, as you know, I use to study and design complex systems, and long ago I spent a lot of time to read how the human brain functions [to tell the truth, I'm still doing].

So I would like to give an interpretation in bio-physics, aware of course that is not the only one possible.

From what I understand, while reading a topic, the amount of brain areas that are stimulated is much higher than those solicited in any other situation that a human being is living. The acquisition of information read, results in the activation of virtually **all brain functions**: from the sense of sight to the **decision areas**, including motor impulses [well, it's happened to all of us a sudden need for a more comfortable (or perhaps, more "athletics") posture, in the period of maximum concentration during a reading]; the sense of hearing [we listen to the voice of the topics that we are reading] , even the taste. Oddly enough, I read that during a careful reading you are sexually stimulated - and indeed , this does not seem to me so far from reality.

Then, because of my work, I tried to make a kind of archive in the format open repository, where everyone uses his resources in order to classify, sort, edit, enrich them; and form this device I tried to build with other people applying genetic algorithms, it was expected to bring out as much as possible all the peculiarities of personal information [we used to call it "the cultural karyotype"].

For this reason, I had to study with some biologists and chemists, and at least I was surprised: a function that describes what is happening in the consciousness of an individual while he is reading in his brain, is extremely complex - and extremely richest than any other funcion that describes any other human situation.

Perhaps, this "wealth" is perceived in turn also from the decision area of the human being, and this gives you the sense of a **greater conviction** :)

See you,

g

Brilliant, Brilliant, Brilliant.....thanks a lot Charles, Paul and Giuseppe for the detailed and interesting opinions shared. Being enlightened by your suggestions is an understatement. I very much appreciate your respective opinions shared and your points are well noted

Although we may think of papers and books as objective forms of stimulation, we respond to stimulation differently based on our different histories. Even within the same person, any stimulus presented twice will yield different responses from the first presentation to the second. For example, some neurons in the perirhinal cortex will respond differentially to subsequent presentation allowing recognition performance.

Anecdotally, when we read a book the second time we respond to it differently compared to the first time we read it. The first encounter with the book has changed us in numerous ways, and we are not the same person the second or the third time around.

So while in a paradigm grounded on the laws of physics the book is an objective entity that exists independently, within a psychological and neural perspective there is no such thing as a stimulus existing independently from a response, and multiple stimulus presentations lead to differential responding.

This leads to the common problem that arises when discussing the value of art. We assign value to the stimulus (book, song...) while we are really talking about the way respond to those forms of stimulation, and the way we respond differs because we have different histories. So we are describing different things under the illusion that we are talking about the same thing, leading to endless discussions.

Amazing....thanks a lot Daniele for the wonderful opinion shared...Your point is well noted and very much appreciated

[Of course, I do agree with Daniele].

g

Language Acquisition Theories are a good place to start. And, then there is perception.

Thanks a lot Tanita for your suggestion. Your point is well noted

There is an added issue that has not really been addressed - expectation of desired outcome. Although we certainly view anything based on our personal history, that history also has an impact on our expectations, which influences our desired outcomes. This is particularly easy to see in politics, but occurs in most of our lives. Two people,a so-called "conservative" and "liberal" pair will look at the same data and give different interpretations based on their desired outcomes. To generalize, to a common example, pessimists see the "glass half empty" and optimists see the "glass half full". This is based on expected desired outcomes. The pessimist will view the half empty glass as showing that things are going downhill and something has been removed because the "desired outcome" for the pessimist is negative. The optimist will view the half full glass (the same amount as in the half empty glass) as showing that things are moving up and something is either added or still there because the "desired outcome" for the optimist is positive.

Thus, although our history impacts our current status, our expected outcomes also impact our view of the world (or in the case you described, the written word).

Impressive...thanks a lot Edgar for the wonderful opinion shared...Your point is well noted and very much appreciated

The situations,the circumstances, make people think the way they think. Its my opinion.

Thanks a lot Sana for the opinion shared. Your point is well noted and much appreciated

Without being my specialty and setting aside the genetic influence on this issue, I propose some important aspects. I believe that the previous experiences of the subject, the family and social environment, education, culture and emotional state, are key to the interpretation of a text.

We are influenced by our world view and the information we have about a particular issue. Whether written or not this knowledge is kept in our subconscious and that influences our interpretations.

I will not say that this is the complete answer, but partially it can be because of the structure of the information itself. Often we have information on what to do or not to do and an emerging science seems to suggest it is because the information has a fuzziness/inferential gap that is sometimes to large to be reliable. For example, if we would say "don't eat at night" it is what we call Atomistic, or a truth statement. But if you were to say "do not eat at night it will make your tummy hurt" that causality clears the fuzziness/inferential gap in the information.

But to be short a new emerging science "science of conceptual systems" and specifically the use of the Integrative Propositional Analysis, seems to suggest the more we have unstructured information/knowledge the more people argue over interpretation and meaning. And so if we can improve the causal logic (with reliable data underlying it) between pieces of information it would decrease the inferential gap. But of course the context must also be taken into consideration. And so perhaps this could assist. For work on this science and idea you can get from https://projectfast.org/resources/

Regards,