▼ Affective Learning Lab ▼

The schema model and the seesaw

The diagram above and the seesaw below are the same system; watch them move together.

ENVIRONMENT far more than can be taken in the filter “does this matter to me?” personal · social · cultural SALIENCE NETWORK · AI + ACC PERCEIVED most never got through WORKING MEMORY limited capacity ISOLATED DETAIL hippocampus fades unless re-tagged GIST, MEANING & SELF mPFC & neocortex gist forms here, and so does transcendent thinking consolidation down, reconstruction up (parallel, not a queue) beyond the concrete: what does this mean for me, for others, for how the world works, for what I value? PREDICTS IDENTITY & LIFE SATISFACTION (Gotlieb et al., 2024) UPDATES WHEN sleep, rest, reflection (default mode dominant) encoding is sentiment before semantics what you build biases what you notice next the filter is the pivot detail is the focus end gist is the reflection end THE SAME SYSTEM, AS A SWITCHING DYNAMIC FOCUS MODE ECN · isolated detail REFLECTION MODE DMN · pattern & gist THE PIVOT · SALIENCE NETWORK challenge fires it too: a mismatch that feels worth the effort of closing ACC · effort valuation · sustains the cycle within a band toggling, not choosing a side moment to moment they trade off; over development they coordinate more Gotlieb et al., 2024 outward: the task where cognitive load theory does its work inward: what it means where consolidation and identity happen THE BODY: interoception, homeostasis, allostasis Heart rate, gut, glucose, hormones, safety. Always running, never neutral. The pivot stands on this. It is what sets the filter in the first place.
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Step 1 · before anything else

The body is already running

Nothing has been taught yet and the system is already in a state. Fed or hungry, safe or threatened, rested or not. This is the layer the standard model leaves off the page entirely.

Notice where the pivot sits: it stands on the body. What the body reports is what sets the filter above it.

the seesaw cannot move until the pivot has something to stand on
salience & body (the pivot) detail & focus (ECN) gist & meaning (DMN)