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Fig. 13.3
Further abstracted model of tropic communication
the left and fully-happy to the right. Thus Music P makes A strongly happy, Music
Q makes A moderately happy and so on through R and S.
Actor B's happiness quotient is similarly shown and we can see it is different for
Music R but quite similar for Music P. Thus when B tells A that Music P makes
him feel happier than does Music S, Actor A will interpret that declaration against
its (A's) internal model of the happiness quotients it has attributed to Music P and
Music S. Since A finds P to be less-happy music than S it might well respond to
B by expressing surprised disagreement. B, who cannot be aware of A's internal
ratings, will come back with a further comparison with which it hopes to clarify the
extent of Music P's happiness in its estimation. It might respond, “OK, but surely
you find R happier than P.” It can be seen that this will not bring agreement since
A's internal model still will not be able to support that belief, but it will enhance A's
understanding of B's vision of the world as it modifies its model of B's vision in
repose to the discussion.
The use of continua to represent strength of emotion, and statements of sequence
to represent the tropic communications which are all that may pass between A and
B, allowed us to construct a functional model which would simulate the course of
an internal model change.
Adding the potential for an Actors C, D, E and so on, allows us to extend the
model to simulate another factor, the process by which A may choose with whom it
wants most to talk. If A converses with B and C, it will eventually find that one or the
other of the actors will tend towards a better agreement with its own assessments. In
future exchanges A may choose to take the views of C more seriously because they
agreed better with its own perceptions last time they talked. To account for this we
adopt the notion of belief (see Chap. 7 and Addis and Gooding
1999
) as a weighting
of C's (and others) views in A's estimation. Tropic communication such as this takes
place in a social situation and it is our personal experience that such changes in social
bonding do, in fact, take place with people.
