[HN Gopher] Our brains create mental "chapters" with new event s...
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Our brains create mental "chapters" with new event segmentation
study
Author : domofutu
Score : 174 points
Date : 2024-12-15 05:29 UTC (4 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.psypost.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.psypost.org)
| domofutu wrote:
| original study - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42421683
| aussieguy1234 wrote:
| And now, AI LLMs have a way to prioritise what's important and
| organise their memory (context window)
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42411409
| paweladamczuk wrote:
| Please fix the title.
| azeirah wrote:
| I wonder if this is the same for people who haven't grown up with
| linear media (books with chapters, shows with episodes/chapters,
| albums with songs etc)
|
| I always think of the WEIRD people nuance when reading about
| these kinds of findings. Is the study cohort
|
| - Western
|
| - Educated
|
| - Independent
|
| - Rich
|
| - Democratic
|
| ?
| HPsquared wrote:
| As most of the readers are also WEIRD, the results would still
| be relevant even if the scope was limited to that.
| baxtr wrote:
| So many upvotes but very few comments.
|
| My feeling is that people are interested in the topic per se but
| struggle with the takeaway from this paper.
|
| I have tried to read the article and also skimmed the original
| paper, but could not summarize any of it if you asked me now.
| spacemanspiff01 wrote:
| So what I got (but I don't really know what I am talking about)
|
| When thinking about a story (or a sequence of events) we can
| parse it in different ways.
|
| We may think about the changes in time/location:
|
| -------
|
| 1 he went to the store
|
| 2. then went to gas station
|
| 3. then went home
|
| 4. the next day he woke up.
|
| ---------
|
| Or you could think of the emotional changes:
|
| ---------
|
| 1. he was concerned about being unemployed.
|
| 2. then at the gas station he got a call saying he got the job
| and he starts tomorrow.
|
| 3. He is nervous about his first day of work.
|
| ------
|
| With fmri we can detect these context shifts.
|
| The thing the paper adds is that by prompting the user to pay
| attention to 'emotions' or 'location' it affects where these
| segmentation changes occur in the fmri results.
| baxtr wrote:
| Ok interesting, thanks.
|
| In storytelling these are called outer and inner journey
| respectively.
| alexpetralia wrote:
| Also called the fabula and syzuhet!
| uxhacker wrote:
| You're absolutely right--this topic is fascinating but complex,
| which might explain why people are engaging with the idea but
| struggling with the takeaway. One way to think about the paper
| is that it extends the chunking model, which is essential not
| only for UX design but also for understanding how people
| perceive and organize the world around them.
|
| How This Extends the Chunking Model
|
| 1) Dynamic, Real-Time Chunking: Traditional chunking models
| focus on discrete, often static information (like remembering a
| phone number or words). This study shows how the brain applies
| a similar principle to continuous, dynamic experiences--
| segmenting life into "mental chapters" as events unfold.
|
| 2)Neural Foundations: By identifying the specific brain areas
| (hippocampus and prefrontal cortex) responsible for marking
| event boundaries, it adds a biological layer to the chunking
| model. It's not just a cognitive strategy--it's a neural
| process tied to memory formation and retrieval.
|
| 3) Application to UX Design: In UX, understanding event
| boundaries can inform how we design user journeys. For example,
| breaking a process (like signing up for a service) into clear
| steps with defined "boundaries" helps users perceive the flow
| and remember their progress. Similarly, designing interfaces to
| reflect natural event segmentation (e.g., transitions between
| scenes in a video or steps in an onboarding flow) aligns with
| how people mentally organize experiences.
|
| 4) Understanding and Communication:
|
| Beyond UX, this model shows why clear, structured narratives
| are critical for teaching, storytelling, or even summarizing a
| paper. Without clear boundaries, information gets lost in the
| noise. Potential Hypotheses for Altered States:
|
| It also hints at why psychedelics, which might blur these event
| boundaries, lead to a sense of timelessness or
| interconnectedness. This could extend into therapeutic
| applications or understanding atypical cognition.
|
| Why This Matters for Understanding Things When we fail to
| structure information with clear boundaries, it becomes harder
| to process or remember--perhaps like your experience skimming
| the article. This study offers a roadmap for how we can improve
| communication and design to better align with our brain's
| natural segmentation processes.
| uxhacker wrote:
| Really interesting is that current LLMs don't explicitly use
| chunking for storage; they rely on distributed
| representations across parameters. However, their self-
| attention mechanisms and sequence processing mimic chunking
| during runtime, creating dynamic "chunks" of context.
|
| I'm at my limit, wondering if future models incorporating
| explicit chunking for better memory, scalability, and
| efficiency could truly take them to the next level.
| flocciput wrote:
| ChatGPT spotted.
| baxtr wrote:
| I had the same thought.
|
| Funny how we humans have learned to spot AI generated
| content!
| fruit_snack wrote:
| There's an interesting podcast episode of Lex Fridman with
| Charan Ranganath (memory researcher) in case people are looking
| for more on the topic
| HarHarVeryFunny wrote:
| The "graphical abstract" at the start of the linked article
| seems to be the intended takeaway.
|
| It seems to be a somewhat predictable consequence of the fact
| that perception appears to work by us predicting what we're
| seeing/experiencing, with sensory input merely
| guiding/correcting those predictions. This is also related to
| us mostly only seeing/remembering what we're focused on (i.e.
| focused on predicting).
|
| So, if we're predicting/focusing on an episodic experience
| fitting some sequential "template" (e.g. restaurant or
| proposal), then that's how we'll perceive it and
| segment/memorize it.
| m0llusk wrote:
| This reminds me of the emerging description of conscious function
| from Daniel Bor's book The Ravenous Brain. In this interpretation
| the mind is constantly trying to interpret sensory data as intent
| driven actions from differentiated actors. This makes available
| critical information about threats and possible targets and so
| on.
| baxtr wrote:
| Interesting.
|
| Reminds me of the book "The Mind is Flat" by Nick Charter who
| says that the mind is constantly improvising.
| MailleQuiMaille wrote:
| Well...if you present stories, for sure we gonna make chapters
| out of it. Or beats, even.
|
| I wonder what the results would have been if people were showed
| documentary footage with no narration ? But my suspicion is that
| just like we sometimes see human faces in places they clearly
| don't belong, structuring information in a story format
| (beginning, middle, end with rises and falls in between) is an
| intrinsic part of how we process.
|
| Maybe it's not so much that we like stories, but that we see
| stories everywhere and the more information takes this digest
| form, the more we feel at ease ?
| HarHarVeryFunny wrote:
| We always predict as well we can - that's just how the brain
| works. Even without narration we'll be subconsciously comparing
| what we're seeing to past experiences and using those
| experiences to predict what comes next at various levels of
| abstraction.
|
| I highly doubt we have any intrinsic bias towards perceiving
| things as following a story template, since our DNA has been
| shaped by nature, not stories. The major bias we do have,
| encoded in the way that our brain works, is just that nature is
| largely predictable on various scales - next time will be the
| same as last time - and this bias is what causes us to predict
| and perceive/segment current experience based on past
| experience.
| MailleQuiMaille wrote:
| >our DNA has been shaped by nature, not stories. Interesting
| point, I believe the opposite. Or, let's say, that stories
| have much more impact that DNA on our behaviour/thinking
| models.
|
| Religion, money, appartenance to a tribe outside of immediate
| family, all of that are stories that we adhere to. Hell, look
| at kamikazes : a group of people willingly destroying
| themselves (and therefore, their DNA) for the perceived well-
| being of a larger imaginary group, "their countrymen".
|
| No, I believe animals can and do predict their environment,
| but we differ because we can adhere to a layer of information
| that is on top of what we can observe : call it collective
| subconscious or myths, but this is information that helps us
| do more.
| tinthedev wrote:
| This sounds quite interesting even from a non-AI/machine learning
| perspective (as a lot of posts are discussing that).
|
| I'd say it's a quite important lesson in UI/UX design, and
| interfaces generally. As per the article, our brains are primed
| to:
|
| > actively constructs event boundaries based on internal
| priorities rather than passively responding to environmental cues
|
| Explains why ads effectivity is low, why a lot of users miss
| obvious cues, and why UI design is so hard. It's something a lot
| of professionals know intuitively and through anecdotal evidence.
|
| It is quite interesting to see research dig deeper into it, and
| possibly research/develop better "levers" to pull human attention
| more efficiently - essentially make us remember things. Priming
| was long understood to help, and that's primarily from
| observation/empiricism. Deeper insights into how the brain itself
| handles this could be game changers.
| notnaut wrote:
| Outside of a direct connection into the brain, doesn't it seem
| a bit unlikely that we ever discover some sort of psychological
| method of achieving significantly better attention grabbing for
| individuals or (harder yet) groups than what we've already got?
|
| The stuff my cartoon addled mind can picture is akin to
| brainwashing with a black and white spinning spiral. That or
| extensive, repeated exposure to certain stimuli, clockwork
| orange style.
|
| Better priming seems like the best we could hope to achieve, in
| a sense, outside of things we'd probably be better off not
| getting into?
| jvanderbot wrote:
| Not an expert, but it seems the Holy Grail would be to make
| an advertisement relevant to the activity the person is
| currently doing, or things they are thinking about. At least
| then there's a better chance they'd remember it, if they in
| fact remember the thing at all. Like a tool that recommends a
| better tool when you try to do it for a job it's not intended
| for. I always wish I had a better chop saw when I'm using a
| circle saw for a too-large post, but when I see ads for chop
| saws I ignore them.
|
| This is probably why there's this enduring trope about going
| to the hardware store and getting stuck for hours and walking
| out with too much stuff. You're already in the project mode
| and there to buy things you need. Very easy to grab just one
| more thing. Like, why is hobby lobby still a thing?
| DCH3416 wrote:
| We have direct access to people's visual cortex and audio
| processing with handsets. Folks are receiving a stream of
| data tailored specifically to their life and experiences.
| It's pretty direct while still being indirect.
|
| A simple example in legacy media is with Coca Cola. The ads
| show good experiences and attempt to anchor those emotions to
| real life events, and then the tag line Enjoy. So your
| enjoyment is tagged with having a Coke. Relatively straight
| forward.
|
| These days, and this is still an emerging technology. Ads can
| be built and constructed on a per user basis. So rather than
| generalizing, you can synthetically anchor ideas onto
| individual real life emotions. And then at the right time
| have the systems massage in the idea of compulsively making a
| purchase. So while not strictly black and white spinning
| spiral. It's more interception at a particularly vulnerable
| moment. At least in my observations.
| lenerdenator wrote:
| I feel like my ADHD brain creates a bunch of sticky notes that
| then get attached to a page in a notebook, which is then
| unceremoniously shoved into a backpack with its cover open so
| that the sticky notes come off of the pages and fall into the
| backpack and get crumpled.
| galleywest200 wrote:
| It either does this, or it superglues the sticky note to the
| zipper of the backpack so its always the thing you think about
| first.
| constantcrying wrote:
| I hate these studies. The title is obviously false, the study
| obviously could not demonstrate the claim the title makes.
|
| Can we _please_ stop asking people something while looking at
| their brain "activities"? It is not helpful at all, it generates
| exactly zero knowledge.
|
| This is like trying to figure out how the weather works by
| throwing scraps of paper into the air and tracing how the wind is
| throwing them around.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| If you take everything literally then everything is wrong. All
| models are wrong but some are useful. (And wasn't that
| essentially the plot of twister?)
| constantcrying wrote:
| There is no model. It is just an observation that in March
| more often then not the scraps thrown into the wind move in
| an 8 like shape.
|
| Even supposing this finding replicates, it shows essentially
| nothing. It _definitely_ doesn 't show anything about the
| brain creating "chapters".
| giardini wrote:
| IOW Minsky's frames and scripts, later fleshed out by Roger
| Schank, but in an fMRI context.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frame_(artificial_intelligence...
|
| Before the recent LLM distraction, I thought that (frames,
| scripts, et al; not fMRI) was the one true path.
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