The Construal Level Theory and Psychological Distance

Our brain is conducive to creative thinking and problem-solving – Literally, and figuratively, making mental connections. The brain is readily equipped with the necessary conditions to think critically, creatively, and out-of-the-box. All it needs is a strategic push and the skill can be developed.

One of the main indications to show that we are readily equipped is that we don’t form single memories of an object in its entirety – That means, our knowledge is not stored and delivered via Amazon-grade packaging. It is fragmented, broken down, reorganized, and stored in networks of small bits of information.

It’s more like Amazon sending you the building blocks of a new phone but only when you have some basic information about the building blocks. Otherwise, Amazon sends people to talk with the micro-experts living in your brain who teach you how to build the building blocks. Then, as millions of small deliveries take place, your brain will build an Ikea-type store of all these parts and use those parts to build a phone. Except, that phone is a concept in your mind – A network of properties, components, ideas, relationships, functions, examples, etc.

This may sound tiresome but our brain is efficient in doing that. It’s what makes the brain flexible and conducive to learning new things. Many of the micro-experts in that confusing analogy are configurations of neurons based on genetics. Many of the people which Amazon sends to talk with the micro-experts are like the interactions between our attention and raw information entering through our senses. These interactions build many Ikeas in the brain with large layouts of partly built products, fully built products, and components – all mapped to each other.

Even our neurons/cells form a network. Some are specialized in representing certain types of information but these are not nearly enough to represent a whole concept because whole concepts are complex and they have various properties and structures. The Face cells^[1] specialize in identifying faces. The Place cells^[2] specialize in location, order, and position. These types of cells are activated when we deal with a specific property of a larger concept. The way those cells fire is often linked to other neurons that deal with other types of information – color, shapes, textures, emotions, etc. These may or may not be fundamental. Perhaps geometric shapes, human bodies, etc. are fundamentally irreducible to smaller meaningful components, but not all shapes – the shape of a rocket, the shape of, buildings, the shape of you, etc.