R-mode Sees Forest; L-mode Sees Trees
Pattern matching is a key ability demonstrated by experts. It’s how they can narrow their choices and focus on just the relevant parts of a problem.
And for the most part, the pattern matching we’ve been interested in lies in the neglected R-mode activity. But both L-mode and R-mode have their separate approaches to pattern matching, and in the end you need both.
Consider the following figure:[46]
| | I I |
| | I I |
| | I I |
| | I I |
| | I I I I I I I |
| | I I |
| | I I |
| | I I |
| | I I |
Here we have an H character made up of individual I characters. This kind of pattern is known as a hierarchical letter. Psychologists present this sort of figure to subjects one eye at a time—quickly—and ask them to identify the big and small letters. ...
Get Pragmatic Thinking and Learning now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.
