If learning were simply a matter of accumulating lists of facts, then it shouldn’t make any difference if we are presented with information that is just a little bit beyond what we already know or totally new information.
(A)
If we are trying to understand something totally new, however, we need to make larger adjustments to the units of the patterns we already have, which requires changing the strengths of large numbers of connections in our brain, and this is a difficult, tiring process.
(B)
The adjustments are clearly smallest when the new information is only slightly new ― when it is compatible with what we already know, so that the old patterns need only a little bit of adjustment to accommodate the new knowledge.
(C)
Each fact would simply be stored separately. According to connectionist theory, however, our knowledge is organized into patterns of activity, and each time we learn something new we have to modify the old patterns so as to keep the old material while adding the new information.
* compatible: 양립하는
