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Shared reality and abstraction: The social nature of predictive models
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 June 2020
Abstract
We propose that abstraction is an interpersonal process and serves a social function. Research on shared reality shows that in communication, people raise their level of abstraction in order to create a common understanding with their communication partner, which can subsequently distort their mental representation of the object of communication. This work demonstrates that, beyond building accurate models, abstraction also functions to build socially shared models – to create a shared reality.
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- Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press
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Author response
Above and beyond “Above and beyond the concrete”