Vers un sujet narratif de la connaissance dans les modélisations de l 'apprentissage

Abstract

Monique LINARD : Towards a narrative knowing subject in models of learning The purpose of this paper is to make a plea for a more existential, less objectivist approach to models of learning. The first theoretical part attempts to show how some trends in developmental psychology converge with neurobiology and language philosophy and recognize that, for a natural living intelligence, pure information simply does not exist. Human knowledge, in particular, is seen as the knowledge of someone for something in a context. The incarnation of the process of knowing in a bio¬ physical Mid psychic body itself imbedded in a socio-relational symbolic type of environment is neither a negligible nor a separable fact. It is a building component of cognitive activity (phenomenological stand). Consequently, cognitive objects and tasks don't stand out by themselves ; they exist inasmuch as they are produced by subjects self-directed by an interrelated set of intentions, mobiles and meanings. It is stated that in neglecting the "subject" of knowledge, the existing I.A. modélisations deprive themselves of a double means of selective control, common to natural cognitive systems : upstream, the selective orientation by intention and motivation and, downstream, the selective adaptative structuration by feedbacks of actions and decisions identified as interesting by the system. The second part of the paper describes a tentative step towards the formal modelling of a knowing subject from both an actional and narrative perspective. A.J. Greimas' actantial model and semio-narrative theory are summarily expounded. Within this frame, the act of learning is interpreted as the quest of objects of a particular nature (objects of knowledge) by actor-subjects playing their roles in a context of social interactions of a polemico-contractual type. The model provides an operational description which integrates within a narrative framework some of the roles, attitudinal modalities and situational parameters at work in the ordinary course of human activity. Lastly, the main features of INTERACTOR, a simulation derived from the above model, are explained (draft version in Prolog and Visual Basic). The simulation has been conceived as a training tool to explore the dynamic complexity of the underlying attitudinal socio-affective and situational interactions that pre-condition the cognitive activity of individuals in a learning context.