Representational redescription model: what it is and what it proposes

Do you know the representational redescription model?

It is a cognitive model created by professor and neurocognition researcher Annette Karmiloff-Smith. This model tries to explain how our mind operates when it comes to obtaining and transforming knowledge.

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What is the Representational Redescription Model?

The Representational Redescription Model is a model proposed by neuroscientist researcher Annette Karmiloff-Smith. It is a model of cognitive development, which offers insight into the cognitive aspects that develop during the acquisition and development of human language.

What the representational redescription model promotes is to establish new systems of relationships between the different representations that we have, at a mental level, of reality (of ourselves, of the context, circumstances, relationships, objects, etc.) etc.).

The model also defends the importance of making explicit two elements that are part of our mental representations: the object or attitude, on the one hand, and the agent of representation, on the other.

Characteristics

Regarding its characteristics, one of the functions of the Representational Redescription Model is to change the vision of the world that the person has, as well as the theories, ideas or knowledge that he has been acquiring from his surroundings.

Through her model, Karmiloff-Smith deviates from the structuralist tradition and opts for an approach where the key element is the hypotheses; According to Karmiloff-Smith, hypotheses are the theories in action that allow us to formulate, define (and redefine) our way of thinking.

Her model attaches great importance to the vital stage of childhood; Specifically, the theory on which the Model of representational redescription states that children's mental activity is singled out through the process of making explicit certain implicit representations, through different phases where an internal reorganization occurs in the child's mind.

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Theoretical bases

At a theoretical level, the bases of the Representational Redescription Model are: nativism and constructivism.

Nativism is a doctrine that states that certain types of knowledge are innate (not acquired through experience or learning). For its part, constructivism is a pedagogical current that suggests that we are the ones who are building our own knowledge, progressively and actively.

On the other hand, the representational redescription model also takes the perspective of development, without neglecting the innate part (more of a biological nature) of every human being.

Importance of explicit learning

In the Representational Redescription Model, the concept of “explicit learning” acquires great relevance. This type of learning involves a restructuring of the knowledge we have in a given field.

In this way, the fact of making explicit an implicit knowledge would be carried out from the redescription of said knowledge in a new theoretical framework.

On the other hand, we must bear in mind that in any process of acquiring knowledge, whatever it may be, culture greatly influences us; this way, when we acquire new knowledge (or system of representation), we do so through cultural systems that influence us.

representational redescription

To better understand how the Representational Redescription Model works, we are going to know what this last concept consists of (representational redescription; RR).

Representational redescription is a way of obtaining knowledge through our mind; it is a matter of internally exploiting the information that it already has stored, through a process of redescription of mental representations. In other words; it is about re-representing (re-description) the representations we have of things, in different formats.

This way, through this process, an implicit representation becomes knowledge. In addition, this process also allows us to build our "I-agent", a psychotherapy concept that consists of the identity that we are building at a cognitive level.

Levels of knowledge representation

According to Annette Karmiloff-Smith we can find up to four different levels through which we represent knowledge, and on which the model is based. These levels are:

1. Implicit level (1)

It is about the representations of a procedural nature that would not be accessible to other parts of the cognitive system. These types of implicit representations are interpreted in connectionist terms.

2. Explicit level (1)

They are the representations they become symbolic representations (“information packages”), and would be stored in our memory in a “compact” way. They are both explicit and implicit; explicit because they are in our memory, and implicit because we cannot report them.

Both these representations and the previous ones (implicit level, 1), are effective in situations where an automatic, fast and immediate response is required.

3. Explicit level (2)

It encompasses that information packaged in our representation system in a stable and lasting way. In other words, it is about the information that we have in our memory. This information can be retrieved and updated through new representations.

4. Explicit level (3)

Finally, the explicit level (3) of the representational redescription model encompasses the true explicit representations; that is, they are the ones that, in addition to being available, are accessible to others at an explicit level (consciously).

Both these representations and the previous ones (explicit level, 2) are the ones that allow new situations to be addressed, where the response that is required (or needed) is not automatic, but flexible.

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Processes that operate and learning

Two processes are worth mentioning. are developed within the Model of representational redescription. These processes are, in reality, two complementary directions that our learning takes:

1. procedure

The procedural process is a gradual process, which allows our mind to make, of existing knowledge, a more automatic type of knowledge (and at the same time, less accessible). An example of learning that we carry out from this process is learning to solve a Rubik's cube.

2. explicitation

In the second process, knowledge becomes more accessible to our mind; In this case, we are talking about explicitly representing implicit information, as far as procedural representations are concerned. An example of this would be learning to play the piano.

Bibliographic references:

• Merani, A. (1979). Dictionary of Psychology. Mexico: Grijalbo.
• Moreno, E.Z. (2015). Reflection on the theoretical proposal of the Karmiloff-Smith Representational Redescription model. The Third Shore, (15). National University of Córdoba-Argentina.
• Tolkhinsky, L. (1996). Beyond the modularity of Annette Karmiloff Smith or how to make developmental psychology a relevant science. Psychology Yearbook, Barcelona, ​​University of Barcelona, ​​Faculty of Psychology, 69: 199-211.