Cognitive Mapping and the Understanding of Literature

Author(s): Richard Bjornson

Source: SubStance, Vol. 10, No. 1, Issue 30 (1981), pp. 51-62
Published by: University of Wisconsin Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3684397
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 CognitiveMapping
and the Understandingof Literature

RICHARDBJORNSON

During the past twentyyears,much of the impetusfortheoreticalspecula-

tion in literarystudieshas come fromnon-literary disciplines.Yet, despitethe
intensity of this activityand the polemics associated with it, there has been
relatively littleattempt to elaborate a generallycomprehensibleexplanationof
how the writingand reading of literarytexts relate to the more universal
problem of how people orientthemselvesin the worldwhere theyare obliged
to live. What is needed is a plausible epistemologicalmodel capable of inte-
grating informationand methodological strategiesfrom various disciplines
without contradictingthe best available knowledge about how the human
mind actuallyoperates. Such a model should not be bound to the terminology
or problem-settingtechniquesof a single discipline,nor should itsapplicabil-
ity be restrictedto the characteristicmental behavior of a single culture or
ideology. The need to address this problem is particularlyacute at a time
when politicallyand intellectuallyconservativeforcesare threateningto dis-
credit the genuine theoreticaladvances of the 1960's and 1970's by attacking
their excesses and their limitations.'Although pluralismoffersa tempting
solution to the dilemma of competing interpretations,it too is ultimately
unsatisfying,because, if people are to conceptualizetheirworld and act in it,
they must either choose among alternativeexplanationsor synthesizea new
one.2
A more promisingpoint of departure mightwell be a serious considera-
tion of cognitivefunctionand itsrelationshipto the creationand comprehen-
sion of literarytexts.3Any involvementwith literatureis necessarilyem-
bedded withinthe larger contextof all human activity, and it seems plausible
to assume that the same mentaloperationswhichallow people to make sense
of their physicalenvironmentsare also called upon when theyseek to under-
stand the verbal universes they encounter in literarytexts. Furthermore,
there is an undeniable carryoverof informationfromlived experience to lit-
erature, and fromliteratureto lived experience.4To avoid the contradictions
inherentin drawing absolute boundaries betweenthe world of words and the
Sub-Stance N0 30, 1981 51

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52 Richard Bjornson

world of things, it might be useful for those involved in literarystudy to

reflectupon the broad general outlines of an epistemologicalmodel that is
beginning to emerge froma remarkableconvergenceof thoughtin a number
of differentdisciplines. This model is generallybased upon some formof
analogy between mental activityand the making or modifyingof maplike
structuresthat allow individualsto situatethemselvesin theirenvironments.
For literaryscholars and critics,the idea of cognitivemapping holds out the
possibilityof reestablishinglinks between their activitiesand the dominant
concerns of the larger communityin whichtheyparticipate.Withoutrequir-
ing a systematicrepudiation of all previous work in the field,isolatingtexts
from their contexts, or reducing them to exemplars of narrowlydefined
substructures,the cognitivemapping model sanctionsthe treatmentof litera-
ture as a mode of knowledge,includinga knowledgeof how the object world
impinges on human consciousness.
The term "cognitivemap" was firstemployed in 1948 by the psychologist
Edward C. Tolman to describe the subjectiverepresentationswhich permit
rats to orient themselvesspatiallyand to reach preconceived goals in maze-
learning situations.In contrastto the behaviorists,Tolman was convincedthat
stimulus-responsepatternsdid not provide an adequate explanationfor ani-
mal or human behavior; he speculated that "somethinglike a field map"
becomes established in the organism's brain and that this map intervenes
between a stimulusand any intentionalresponse occasioned by it.5According
to him, the cognitivemap comprisesa flexible,schematizedstructurewhich
enables individuals to generate hypothesesabout the object world and to
formulateways of testingthe validityof these hypotheses.Such testsserve in
turn to corroborate, countersubstantiateor modifythe cognitivemaps on
which they were originallybased. Tolman's conceptual model was particu-
larly provocative because it provided an intuitivelyplausible account of
mental activitywithoutleaving it shrouded in mystery(as many humanists
were prone to do) or reducing it to a series of mechanisticcause-and-effect
chains (as the positivistsand the Skinnerianbehavioristsdid). In elaborating
his position, Tolman identifiedthree postulates that have generallybeen
assumed in subsequent versionsof cognitivemapping theory:(1) all organ-
isms, including humans, are characterizedby the propensityto pursue goals
in whateverenvironmenttheyhappen to be placed; (2) thesegoals can onlybe
attained insofar as the organism has succeeded in synthesizinga functional
subjective representationof that environmentfromthe fragmentarybits of
informationreceived throughpreviouscontactswiththe objectworld; and (3)
general knowledge is thereforeneitherinherentin the organismnor statically
present in the environment,but rather a result of the organism's highly
selectiveconstructionof such representationsin an ongoing,dialecticalinter-
change between itselfand the environment.Because some pre-existingstruc-
ture must be present if any informationis to be acquired from the object
world, Tolman's explanation of animal behavior presupposes that the brain
has evolved to be neurologicallyfunctionalformapping the externalenviron-

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 Cognitive Mapping 53

ment and that all animals are endowed with an exploratoryimpulse which
motivatesthem to undertake thismapping.
The validityof this general conception and its applicabilityto human
learning have been largelycorroboratedby the work of developmentalpsy-
chologistslike Heinz Werner and Jean Piaget,bothof whom stressthe role of
subjectivelyconstructedschema in accountingforbehavioralregularitiesthat
cannot be explained satisfactorily in termsof externalstimulior simple trial-
and-error procedures.6 Both of them ascribe these regularitiesto the funda-
mentally similar structureand functionof all human brains. In Tolman's
terminology,Piaget and Werner are assertingthatdifferentpeople's subjec-
tive representationsof the environmentwill resemble each other in certain
respects,because the equipment and procedures employedin cognitivemap-
ping are the same foreveryone.For example, theybothcontendthatintellec-
tual activityis comprised of assimilation(incorporationof informationfrom
the object world into already-structuredcognitivemaps) and accomodation
(adjustment or modificationof the map to make its structureconformmore
adequately to that of the object world). Through interactionswiththe object
world, therefore,people gain an increasinglyserviceableknowledgeof their
environment,but this knowledge seems alwaysto be constructedalong lines
determined by a strikinglyuniformcapacity to organize experience into a
limited number of patterns,many of which appear to be universallyshared.
Yet no two people ever experience exactly the same environment.As a
consequence, everymap will have itsown idiosyncracies;it willdifferin some
ways from all other maps. This is not to say that cognitiverepresentations
have a purely arbitraryrelationshipto the external world. Individuals are
dependent upon maps which enable themto cope withexistingphysicaland
social realities in a world where their choices and actions have practical
consequences. In any case, the assimilationsand accommodationswhichchar-
acterize all organism-environmenttransactionsinsure a general tendency
toward heightened congruencybetween cognitivemaps and the territories
they represent.
A good example of how thisprocess operates can be found in the workof
geographers and city planners who have adopted the idea that knowledge
about the spatial environmentis structuredand storedbymaplikerepresenta-
tions in the brain. In his Image oftheCity,Kevin Lynch refersto these repre-
sentations as "environmentalimages," which evolve in "a two-wayprocess
between the observer and his environment.The environmentsuggestsdis-
tinctionsand relations,and the observer-with greatadaptabilityand in light
of his own purposes-selects, organizes, and endows withmeaning what he
sees. The image so developed now limitsand emphasizes what is seen, while
the image itself is being tested against the filteredperceptual input in a
constant interactingprocess."7By interviewingrepresentativeinhabitantsof
three large urban areas, Lynchdiscoveredthat,althoughthe image of a given
citymay differfromone person to another,there is alwaysa strongelement
of topological invariance: relative locations, sequences, and attributesof

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54 Richard Bjornson

phenomena in the spatial environmenttend to remain recognizable,despite

the idiosyncraciesof individual cognitivemaps. Like Tolman, Lynch noted
that subjective representationsof the object world were flexible-they could
be modified or extended to unfamiliarsurroundings.He also observed that
theytended to rigidifyinto schema whichfacilitatedthe followingof habitual
routes and the attainingof goals that were of particularimportanceto the
individuals concerned. For both Tolman and Lynch,the cognitivemapping
concept explained how people extractstructureand identityfromthe world
in which theylive, avoid feelinglost in highlycomplex environments,inter-
pret new information,and determinethe principlesaccordingto whichthey
intend to act. But in focusingon human orientationprocedures,Lynchadded
a dimension that had been absent in Tolman's model. Perceivingthat many
invariances among the "environmentalimages" of a given citywere attribut-
able neither to brain structurenor to configurationsof phenomena in the
object world, Lynch was obliged to recognize that cognitivemaps were also
functionsof culture-boundsystemsof reference.
Although Lynch himselfdid not explore the epistemologicalramifications
of this insight,that was preciselywhat a number of scholarsin various other
disciplines had already begun to do. Kenneth Boulding, GregoryBateson,
CliffordGeertz, Thomas Kuhn, Ludwig von Bertalanffy, and othersposited
the existence of an overall image, a paradigm,or a worldviewthatintegrates
institutionaland object world patternstructureintoa coherentand functional
map of what any individual considersto be trueor real.8This "map" does, as
Lynch and Tolman pointed out, have the functionof enabling purposeful
activity,but it also serves as a frame of referenceaccording to which new
informationis evaluated and eitherignored or incorporatedinto the subjec-
tive representationof thatworld. Besides servingas an orientingmechanism,
the human cognitivemap provides an interpretivegrid whichenables people
to attach meaning and value to what they perceive. Because the primary
coordinates in thisgrid are furnishedby the repertoireof shared symbolsin a
given culture, the cognitivemapping concept needs to embrace the complex
working of an interactivesystemwith three principal components: the in-
dividual, the environment,and the networkof symbolswhich constitutea
specific culture.
As defined by Geertz, culture is "an historicallytransmittedpatternof
meanings embodied in symbols,a systemof inheritedconceptionsexpressed
in symbolic forms by means of which men communicate,perpetuate, and
develop theirknowledgeabout and attitudestowardlife."9 Religion,ideology,
and popular culture, for example, provide pre-structuredmodules that are
integrated into the cognitive maps which all individuals constructin their
attempts to make sense of the world around them. When culture-bound
symbolsare employedto model thisworld,however,theyare oftengrantedthe
same ontological statusas physicalobjects.This tendencyallowsindividualsto
cope withphenomena of whichtheyhave had no immediateexperience,but it
also causes them to accept withoutquestion a number of assumptionsthey
themselves have never verified.The incorporationof culture-boundsymbol

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 CognitiveMapping 55

systemsinto cognitivemaps is undoubtedlythe primarycause of ethnocen-

trism,and it can impel people to persistforlong periods of timein erroneous
interpretationsof even the most objectivelyverifiablephenomena.10In any
case, cognitive maps are necessarilyincomplete and schematized; they can
never achieve exact correspondencewiththe territory theyrepresent,and any
claim that they embody absolute truthdeserves to be regarded with scepti-
cism."1
Even the most cursory reflectionon the nature of cognitivemapping
shows why this scepticismis justified. Ultimately,there is no way to directly
compare the object world withany individual'ssubjectiverepresentationof it,
and quite differentcognitivemaps mightprove equally effectivein enabling
people to cope with their environments.However, to be serviceable,these
maps must somehow reflectthe same relationalpropertieswhichobtainin the
object world; inaccurate translationsof these propertiesinto cognitivecon-
structsdo have practicalconsequences, for theycause people to adopt inap-
propriate strategiesto achieve the goals theyhave set forthemselves.Because
some phenomena tend to recur with predictableregularityin the environ-
ment, and because not all attributesof all environmentsare relevantto any
individual's goals and purposes, informationabout the relationalproperties
of the object world can be economicallystored in categorizingschema. By
matching these schema with stimulireceived fromthe environment,people
orient themselves and decide what actions are most likelyto produce the
results theydesire.
By their very nature, these schema are incapable of translatingall the
attributesof any given territory.For example, there are more than seven
million visually distincttones in the color spectrum,although most people
commonly employ no more than ten or fifteennames for all the colors they
perceive.12 Even the term "seven million tones" is inadequate insofaras it
erects non-existentboundaries betweenthe countlessdifferencesin the spec-
trum. Despite this inadequacy, such boundaries are extremelyuseful. They
enable people to identifyand respond to phenomena theyhave notpreviously
encountered, and they are the preconditions of all human thought and
communication. Yet theyintroduceinto the cognitivemap two attributesfor
which there is no precedent in the object world: categorizationand the
hierarchizationof categories.Justas the boundaries transforma continuous
series of differencesinto discretecategories,any understandingof the cate-
gories implies the recognitionof a more general concept thatincludes all the
individual colors and allows one to interprettheirrelationshipto thatwhich
they map.
These two attributesof cognitivemaps are shared in all cultures,and they
account, at least in part, forthe regularitiesin learningbehaviorobservedby
Piaget and Werner. People everywherehave a "desire to know,"a "rage for
order." On the most fundamental level, this desire is satisfiedby placing
phenomena into categories and hierarchicallyorganized sets of categories.13
These in turn are integratedinto individuals'overallimages of the worldand
utilized to interpretthe fragmentarysense data with which they are bom-

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56 Richard Bjornson

barded. In a revolutionaryand stillprovocativebook published in the early

1930's, F. C. Bartlettprovided numerousexamples of how thisprocessworks.
When a line drawing or a folk anecdote was presented to his subjects,they
generally sought its rules of arrangementby relatingit to a conventionalor
stereotyped category. As they recalled the material later, they tended to
rememberone or twoisolateddetailsand to reconstructthe remainderon the
basis of theircategorizingschema. In retellingthe verbal narratives,English
subjects either omitted or "naturalized" anythingwhich seemed strange or
incomprehensible,transformingit into somethingfamiliaror providingrea-
sons for apparentlyunmotivatedoccurrences.Bartlettconcluded that mem-
ory is a constructiveprocess whichemployshierarchicallyorganized categor-
izing schema that had been previouslyelaborated by individualsaccordingto
their own idiosyncraticexperiences and structuredby the cultural conven-
tions of the societyin whichtheywere living.The basic motivationbehind this
method of processing informationwas, he thought,a universallyshared
"effortafter meaning."'4 Withinthis conceptual framework,it becomes ob-
vious that, although sublimated sexual energy,class affiliation,ideology or
intertextualmatricescontributeto the elaborationof cognitivemaps, theyare
subordinated to the central fact that people are knowledge-seekinganimals
who are born with"a tremendous,propensityto make and extend maps; that
is, to explore and to learn."'s
If the cognitivemapping model offersa generallycomprehensible,intui-
tivelyplausible account of how the mind operates in selecting,organizingand
storing information,it certainlyhas importantramificationsfor the under-
standing of literature.To illustratehow it mightbe usefulin literarystudies,I
would like to discuss brieflytwo examples-one of whichbears on the gene-
ration of textsand the other on the comprehensionof them. The historyof
Gabriel Garcia Marquez's composition of Cien afiosde soledadprovides an
excellent example of the role played by cognitivemapping in the creationof
literaryworks. At the age of fifteenGarcia Marquez saw his motherweeping
in the streetof the village where he had spent the firsteightyearsof his life,
and he suddenly knew he wanted to writesomethingwhichwould effectively
explain the powerfulimpactthatthe scene was havingon him.'6 All worksof
literaturemust have had a similarorigin: some event,experience,or percep-
tion triggersan individual'sdesire to create an imaginaryspace whichwould
be subject to his or her control.This desire impels aspiringwritersto devise
plans or strategiesfor achievingtheirgoal. Such plans may at firstbe vague
and nebulous. Most of them are probably abandoned, and some may lie
dormant for long periods of time.
For example, the novel whichwould respond to Garcia Mairquez'sdesire
was not writtenuntilmore than twentyyearsafterhe had conceived it. In the
meantime, he had continued to elaborate his own image of the world,and he
had rehearsed various strategiesfor plottingthe imaginaryspace he wanted
to create. One experience thatgreatlyinfluencedthe way he would map that
space was his reading of William Faulkner's novels in the early 1950's. He
recognized thatsocio-politicalstructuresin Faulkner'sSouth resembledthose

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 Cognitive Mapping 57

he had experienced when growing up in Columbia. "I read Faulkner," he

said, "and discovered that his whole world .., .was verymuch like myworld,
that it was created by the same people.""17Like Faulkner,he looked around
himself and saw a societydominated by corrupt politicalsystems,bankrupt
religion, perverse economic organizations,and impotentaristocracies,all of
which contributedto a presentdecadence pregnantwiththe past and hiding
behind a mystifying veil of hypocriticallies and self-deceptions.Increasingly
characterizedby the monomaniacalpursuitof wealthand power,such a world
seemed filledwithpeople who,out of pride or fear,withdrewintothemselves,
refusingto love or to be loved. Againstthisbackground,Garcia Marquez, like
Faulkner, feltcompelled to uphold standardsof endurance and compassion,
while attemptingto render the pain of solitudebearable by regardingit with
humorous, ironic detachment. In addition, he realized that Faulkner had
succeeded in conveyingthe impressionthathis fictionaluniverseconstituteda
self-containedtotalitycapable of circumventingthe linearityof time by con-
flatingpatternsof mythicrecurrenceand the spatio-temporaldistortionsof
individual consciousness.
Faulkner's manipulationof timeas well as the implicitstructuresof mean-
ing and value in his novels did affectthe textof Cienafios,but thendid so only
quite indirectlyand insofaras theyenabled Garcia Mairquezto elaborate his
own cognitivemap and his strategiesforachievinga plan he had formulated
long before he ever encounteredthe writingsof Faulkner.This example illus-
tratesthree extremelyimportantpointsabout the generationof literarytexts:
(1) they are always the result of plans that the individual writercan only
formulate in termsof his or her general knowledgeof the object world; (2)
this knowledge,which servesto map thatworld,is constructedon the basis of
existing, culture-bound systemsof symbols (including those embedded in
literaryworkslike those of Faulkner); (3) textsmap imaginaryterritories that
respond to the writer'sgoals and needs, and insofaras theyare comprisedof
structuresand logical relationshipsemployed to model the objectworld,they
embody a type of knowledge.
Because neither cognitivemaps nor plans are static,the completed text
may be quite differentfroma writer'soriginalconceptionof it.Justas Garcia
Mairquez's acquaintance with Faulkner's novels prompted him to modifyhis
project,writerswhose plans encounterresistanceare oftenobliged to develop
new strategies.For example, Dostoevskybegan workon ThePossessed withthe
intention of tellingold Stepan Trofimovitch'sstory,but as the writingpro-
gressed, he discovered thatNikolai Stavrogin"took over" the centralposition
in his novel.'8 Rather than repudiating the impulse which channeled his
choices in thisdirection,Dostoevskyassimilatedthemintoa new plan forthe
novel. In the ongoing dialectical process during which individual writers
interact with the object world and with a specificculture while seeking to
achieve goals of particularpsychicsignificanceto themselves,theycan never
produce a text which perfectlycorresponds to the imaginaryterritorythat
translates their desire or to the real territoryof the object world. But like
Garcia Mairquezand Dostoevsky,theycan plot imaginaryterritoriesin such a

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58 Richard Bjornson

way that the elegance and internalconsistencyof theirmapping procedures

prove congenial to large numbers of other people. One of the primary
reasons forthisfavorableresponse is undoubtedlythe shared impressionthat
such textsachieve a certaintruthvalue as measured by the extensivenessand
adequacy withwhich cognitiveschema embedded in them can be applied to
the object world. By the nature of human thoughtand itsproducts,thistruth
must remain partial and incomplete; however, since all readers must con-
structtheirown subjectiverepresentationsof the world,theycan and do learn
fromthe textsby means of whichwriterslike Garcia Mairquezand Dostoevsky
sought to overcome the fragmentaryinformationon the basis of which all
cognitive maps are elaborated.
This possibilityleads directlyinto a considerationof mysecond example,
which involvesthe role of cognitivemapping in the comprehensionof literary
texts. In reading a poem, a play or a novel, one is engaged in an effortto
"make sense" of an initiallypuzzling text by relatingthe informationcon-
tained in it to one's overall image of the world. This process allowsone to fill
gaps in the necessarilyincompletetextualmessage; itcan also promptreaders
to incorporate some of that informationinto their own cognitivemaps by
accommodation or assimilation.Yet people do not generallyaccord the same
ontological statusto fictionsas theydo to historical,scientificor other avow-
edly veridical accounts of the object world. They do, however, attemptto
synthesizea compositeimage of the imaginaryterritory mapped in the text."
Constructed and constantlymodifiedduring the reading process,thistextual
image is held separate fromthe reader's overall image, although it is always
generated on the basis of the same schema, logical typingtechniques,and
hierarchizationof concepts employed to "make sense" of the object world. In
other words, people seek coherence and consistencyin textualimages in the
same way as theydo in theircognitivemaps of actual spatio-temporalenviron-
ments. The differenceis thattheyare oftenwillingto entertainhypothesesin
the textual image thattheywould regard as invalid (or valid onlyin a limited
metaphorical sense) if applied to the object world. Even when the textual
image contains elements that clash withthe overall image, readers can obvi-
ously use it to orient themselvesin the imaginaryspace of a given text.Like
the creation of literarytexts,the comprehensionof them is thus based on a
constructivecognitiveprocess.
Two convergentmodes of thoughtare employed in the elaborationof a
textual image, and they both involve the use of informationstored in the
individual reader's cognitivemap of the object world. First,readers always
begin witha general idea of what theyare reading-a poem, a play,a novel-
and of how it can be expected to operate; as theyread, this general idea is
made more and more specificin much the same way as archeologists,con-
frontedby a heap of potsherds,startwitha general idea about the natureof
potteryand gradually refine that idea as they reconstructa particularpot.
The general idea is of course retrievedfromthe reader's overallimage,and in
the case of literature,it includes the presuppositionthatimaginaryterritories
mapped by fictionaltextscan be significantand internallyconsistentwithout

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 CognitiveMapping 59

conformingto the reader's world view or to eventswhichever actuallytook

place.
This presuppositionis crucial to the second mode of thoughtinvolvedin
the reading process-the piece-by-piececonstructionof an image whichmaps
the imaginaryspace described in the text.By assuming thatall the author's
statementsare somehow true and importantwithinthe possible world to be
synthesized from the text, readers make hypothesesabout that world, and
these hypothesesare confirmed,altered,or denied as theycontinueto read.
Such hypotheses are always formulatedin terms of what readers already
know (or thinktheyknow) about the objectworld,thebehaviorof people in it,
and the rhetoricalstrategiesof authors. As hypothesesare validated,modi-
fied,or invalidatedin the reading process,informationis added to the textual
image by assimilationor accommodation.Eventually,thetwomodes of thought
yield a single,schematizedmap of the textand itsimaginaryterritory-a map
which facilitatesrememberingwhat has been read. If asked to describe or
explain a particulartext,most readers would be unable to recall everyword
in it,but as Bartlettsuggestedin his workon remembering,, theycould utilize
the textualimage to constructan account of it. Emphasis mightbe shiftedand
details mightbe omitted,added, or embellished,but forthe same reasons that
there are invariantfeaturesin differentpeople's cognitivemaps of the same
physicalenvironment,analogous structurestend to recurin differentreaders'
mappings of the same text.
Although the understandingof literatureis subject to conditionswhich
enable readers to bracketthe textualimage as a special case withinthe context
of a particularoverall image, it remainscontingentupon the existenceof that
overall image. In fact,it interactswith the overall image in such a way that
literature itselfmight profitablybe considered a type of knowledge rather
than simply a collection of cultural artifacts.One consequence of adopting
this view is a recognition that literaryknowledge does not exist in books,
which merelyofferthe opportunityto acquire it,but in the cognitiveschema
which all individuals must constructfor themselvesduring the reading pro-
cess. Another consequence is a realizationthatthese constructionswilldiffer
from person to person, because individualspursue differentgoals and refer
to differentcognitivemaps as theyread.20Nevertheless,conflictinginterpre-
tations can be compared and evaluated according to their usefulness in
accounting forthe data provided by the text,and readers who engage in such
activityoften revise textual images to enhance theiradequacy and compre-
hensiveness. Like overall images, textual images are flexiblecognitivecon-
structswhich involvea specialized applicationof the same cognitivemapping
techniques which people employ to orientthemselvesin the world.
By relatingthe comprehensionof literarytextsto the acquisitionof gen-
eral knowledge, cognitivemapping theoryoffersa plausible way of bridging
the gap between the world of words and the world of things.In doing so, it
restoresrelevance to the creationand criticismof literature,it enables people
to discuss phenomena which transcend cultural or disciplinaryboundaries,
and it accounts for shared concepts as well as for individual differences.

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60 Richard Bjornson

it does notcontradict
Furthermore, itselfwhenappliedto itself,and itdoes
not require the systematicrepudiation of everythingthat has been learned
withthe aid of existingconceptualmodels;in the case of literary
study,it
would even allow people to build on the insightsof competingmodesof
criticism,many of which could be regarded as special cases in an expanded
paradigmof criticalunderstanding.

NOTES

AgainstItself(Chicago: Universityof Chicago Press, 1979), Gerald Graffattacks

1. In Literature
much of contemporarytheoryforitsrelativism,irrationalism,and irrelevanceto abidinghuman
concerns. Although he quite properlyrecognizesthat cognitionand historicalcontextare ger-
mane to the understanding of literature,his book fails to offera convincingepistemological
model to replace the ones he dismisses,and many academics have interpretedit as sanctioning
their own resistance to significanttheoreticalspeculation by structuralists, post-structuralists,
phenomenologists,Marxists,existentialists, semioticians,and proponentsof speech-acttheory.
2. The best known contemporarypluralistis Wayne Booth, whose CriticalUnderstanding: The
Powersand LimitsofPluralism(Chicago: Universityof Chicago Press, 1979) defends the idea that
differentmodes of criticalunderstandingcan be held in stasisby an individualcriticconfronting
a particular work. Walter Davis's The ActofInterpretation: A CritiqueofLiterary
Reason (Chicago:
Universityof Chicago Press, 1978) proposes a similartheoreticalstancebased on "an irreducible
plurality in human life" that supposedly requires a "pluralityof methods" to apprehend it.
Despite a laudable intellectualtolerance in the works of Booth and Davis, their own "plural
interpretations"could be reconciled on a higher level of integration.Furthermore,the ultimate
need to "make sense" of a textobliges readers to act as if a singleinterpretationwere valid,even
while continuing to regard other possible interpretationsas plausible.
3. Every theoretical position implies an epistemology;for example, when the New Critics
rebelled against positivismin the studyof literature,theywere objectingto the reductionof texts
to the statusof historicalartifacts.In attachingprimaryimportanceto the immediateexperience
of individual texts,theyadopted the assumptionthat literaryworkswere unified,autonomous
structuresof formalvalues and that the close scrutinyof these "values" could explain how texts
worked (or should work)on the human consciousness.Ironically,theintellectualdevelopments-
psychoanalysis,phenomenology,linguistics,the sociologyof knowledge-that eroded the epis-
temological bases of intrinsiccriticismin the 1960's and 1970's were the same as those thathad
earlier called into question the assumptionsbehind positivism.Although insightsderived from
such diverse fields often pointed toward opposite conclusions, they were all concerned with
substructures lying beneath the surface of literarytexts. Whether such substructureswere
mental, social, or linguistic,the implicitepistemologiesof New Criticismand historicalpositivism
proved inadequate to deal withthem.
4. Many proponents of intertextuality would deny this carryoveron grounds that linguistic
systemshave the power to shape texts.Julia Kristeva,Philippe Sollers,Roland Barthes,Michael
Riffaterre,and Harold Bloom would probablynot agree on a singledefinitionof intertextuality,
but theydo share two fundamentalassertions:thatwords in textsare essentiallynon-referential
and that textsshould be related to other textsratherthan to the object world.This viewimplies
that there is no way of bridgingthe gap between the verbal universe and the non-verbalone;
however, people certainlyare obliged to cope with a more extensive context than the one
established by literarytexts,even when theyare engaged in writingor readingthem. In any case,
it is unnecessarilyrestrictive to eliminatea considerationof the general knowledgeacquired from
those contexts. Interest in intertextuality has focused attentionon the systemicpropertiesof
linguisticand literaryentities,and it has sanctionednew possibilitiesforcreativereading,but by
itselfthe concept is epistemologicallyunsound in itsoversimplification of the waysin whichtexts
are actually interpreted.In fact, if the intertextualists' insistenceon the non-referentialityof

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 CognitiveMapping 61

words were carried to its logical conclusion, they themselvescould not possibly refer to the
phenomena theyclaim to be describing.
5. Edward C. Tolman, "CognitiveMaps in Rats and Men," ThePsychological Review,55 (1948),
p. 192.
6. Despite differencestheythemselvesacknowledge,Piaget and Werner essentiallyagree in
their constructivistaccounts of human development processes. Besides Piaget's well-known
studies of cognitivedevelopmentin children,he has describedthe theoreticalramifications of his
research in Theoretical Structuralism(1968; tr.New York: Hayser, 1970) and Biologyand Knowledge:
An Essay on theRelationsBetweenOrganicRegulationsand CognitiveProcesses(1968; tr. Chicago:
Universityof Chicago Press, 1971). Werner'searlierwork-described in Comparative of
Mental Development (1940; rev. New York: Harper, 1957)-has been expanded andPsychology_refinedin
Werner and Bernard Kaplan, Symbol Formation: An Organismic-Developmental ApproachtoLanguage
and theExpressionof Thought(New York: John Wiley& Sons, 1967).
7. Kevin Lynch,TheImageoftheCity(Cambridge: MIT and Harvard UniversityPresses, 1960),
p. 6. A good overviewof how cognitivemapping theoryhas been employedby geographersand
cityplanners is contained in an anthologyof essays,Imageand Environment: Cognitive Mappingand
Spatial Behavior,eds. Roger M. Downs and David Stea (Chicago: Aldine, 1973). The usefulnessof
the cognitivemapping concept in anthropologyand the social scienceshas been illustratedbythe
essays in Cultureand Cognition:Rules, Maps, and Plans, ed. James M. Spradley (San Francisco:
Chandler, 1972).
8. Kenneth Boulding, The Image(1956; rpt. Ann Arbor: Universityof MichiganPress, 1961);
Gregory Bateson, Steps to an Ecologyof'Mind: CollectedEssays in Anthropology, Psychiatry, and
Epistemology (New York: Ballantine, 1972) and Mind and Nature (New York: Dutton, 1979);
CliffordGeertz, The Interpretation ofCultures(New York: Basic Books, 1973); Thomas Kuhn, The
Structureof ScientificRevolutions(1962; rev. Chicago: Universityof Chicago Press, 1972). Von
Bertalanffy'sbasic works include General SystemsTheory:Foundation,Development, Applications
(1968; rev. New York: Braziller,1974) and Perspectives onGeneralSystem Theory (New York: Braziller,
1975); a good general discussion of systemstheoryis contained in Ervin Laszlo, Introduction to
Systems Towarda New ParadigmofContemporary
Philosophy: Thought(New York: Harper, 1972). In
System and Structure:Essaysin Communication and Exchange(1972); rev. New York: Methuen, 1980),
Anthony Wilden applies many of these ideas to the studyof literature.
9. Geertz, Interpretationof Cultures,p. 89.
10. In "On the Perception of Incongruity:A Paradigm" (journal ofPersonality, 18 [1949], pp.
206- 223), Jerome Bruner and Leo Postmanpresentan interestingexample of how people resist
the perception of objects whichdo not conformto culturallyconditionedexpectations.When an
anomalous playing card like a black ace of hearts was mixed in random sequence withnormal
playing cards, subjectstended to see iteitheras a red ace of heartsor as a black ace of spades, but
not a black ace of hearts. When theyencountersuch an anomaly,theirexpectationsare oftenso
strong that they perceive what they expect to see, rather than what is "actuallythere." Much
contemporaryresearchon perceptiontendsto confirmthe generaloutlinesof cognitivemapping
theory; particularlycogent accounts are contained in Ulric Neisser, Cognitionand Realitv(San
Francisco: W. H. Freeman, 1976) and in a series of worksby R. L. Gregory-Eye and Brain: The
Psychology ofSeeing(New York: McGraw Hill, 1970); "The Confounded Eye" in Illusionin Nature
and Art,eds. R. L. Gregoryand E. H. Gombrich(London: Gerald Duckworth,1973), 49-95; and
Conceptsand MechanismsofPerception (New York: Scribner, 1974).
11. The map-territory distinctionwas firstmade nearlyfiftyyearsago by AlfredKorzybskiin
his Scienceand Sanity(1933; rpt. Lakeville,Conn.: InternationalNon-AristotelianLibrary,1950),
pp. 58, 750-751. Everyexplanation (even the one expounded in the presentdiscussion)is onlya
partial explanation; a recognitionof thisfactis perhaps implicitin ArthurKoestler'scontention
that "aberrationsof the human mind are frequentlydue to the obsessional pursuitof some part
truth,treated as ifit were the whole truth."See ArthurKoestler,"Beyond atomismand holism-
the concept of the holon," in BeyondReductionism, eds. Koestler and J. R. Smythies(1969; rpt.
Boston: Beacon, 1971), p. 209.
12. Jerome S. Bruner,JacquelineJ.Goodnow, and George A. Austin,"Categoriesand Cogni-
tion," in Cultureand Cognition,p. 168. The namingof colors does differfromcultureto culture,
and Benjamin Lee Whorf(Language,Thought, and Reality,ed. John B. Carroll [1956; rpt.Boston:

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62 Richard Bjornson

MIT Press, 1966]) used this factto support his contentionthatlanguage is arbitrarilyrelatedto
the object world, but that,once learned, it determinesthe categoriesof thought.The subjectof
considerable debate, the Whorfian hypothesishas been at least partly disconfirmedby the
discoverythatthe same focal colors are similarlyidentifiedin all languages; see George A. Miller,
"Introduction," Psychology and BiologyofLanguage and Thought:Essaysin HonorofEric Lenneberg,
eds. Miller and Elizabeth Lenneberg (New York: Academic Press, 1978), p. 9.
13. In the opening passage of the Metaphysics, Aristotleassertsthatall men by naturedesire to
know. The term"rage fororder" is employed by KennethBurke,who regardslogicaltypingand
hierarchical organization as necessary principlesof human thinking.See Burke, A Rhetoricof
Motives(1950; rpt.Berkeley: Universityof CaliforniaPress, 1969), pp. 137- 142. Geertz,Bateson,
and Wilden have also alluded to an apparentlyinnate impulse toward knowledge,and Jacques
Monod (Of Chanceand Necessity [1970; tr.New York: Vintage, 1971]pp. 161- 180) has proposed a
convincing,geneticallybased explanation of it.
14. Frederic C. Bartlett,Remembering: A Studyin Experimental and Social Psychology(1932; rpt.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971), pp. 14-185 (esp. pp. 20-21, 44-45). The first
person to employ the term "schema" in this sense was Henry Head in his Studiesin Neurology
(Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress, 1920). E. H. Gombrichhas of course made brilliantuse of itin
Artand Illusion(Princeton: PrincetonUniversityPress, 1960).
15. Stephen Kaplan, "Cognitive Maps in Perceptionand Thought," in Imageand Environment,
p. 77.
16. The best account of Garcia Mirquez's lifeand his project forwritingCienafiosde soledadis
contained in Mario Vargas Llosa, GarciaMclrquez:Historiade un deicidio(Barcelona: Monte Avila,
1971).
17. Rita Guibert,SevenLatin AmericanWriters Talk toRita Guibert(New York: Knopf, 1973) p.
327. See also Vargas Llosa, Garcia pp. 138- 150.
18. Fyodor Dostoevsky, Letter to Mirquez,
Nikolai NikolayevitchStrakhov,Oct. 9, 1870 in Lettersof
FyodorMichailovitch Dostoevskyto His Familyand Friends,tr. Ethel C. Mayne (New York: Horizon
Press, 1962) pp. 209-210. See also Notebooks for thePossessed,ed. Edward Wasiolek (Chicago:
Universityof Chicago Press, 1968), passim.
19. An excellent account of thisprocess is containedin George A. Miller,"Images and Models,
Similes and Metaphors," in Metaphorand Thought,ed. Andrew Ortony (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1979), pp. 202-250. I have borrowed the term "textual image" from his
discussion of the problem.
20. A similar conclusion is ratherexhaustivelydefended in Norman Holland's discussionsof
how people reconstruct"identitythemes" in the works they read. See Poems in Persons:An
Introduction tothePsychoanalysisofLiterature(1973; rpt.New York: Norton, 1975) pp. 60- 100 and
5 ReadersReading (New Haven, Yale UniversityPress, 1975).

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