I wrote recently on auditory processing in human consciousness.
This note is to recognise a broader technique.
In computing, a context switch refers to switching between in-flight processes, where each process can be arrested in time, whereas while the process is arrested it continues to consume a specific spatial structure.
We do this all the time in conscious human memory. An important aspect of "executive function" involves being able to think about one set of things, without being distracted by sets of other things.
In conditioning oneself to improve such performances ... it is important to understand the nature of scope of the data structures which are being manipulated here.
Human consciousness is a set of memory buffers which hold sense data. Therefore ... the introductory language for modelling is ...
- one must recognise the sensory data sets associated which each cognitive context ...
- each data set consists of spatio-temporal quantities ... ( "transcendental analytic" )
- each data set consists of the qualities of all present sense modalities ... ( "transcendental aesthetic")
Example. So sometimes when we try to focus on, say, an accounting spreadsheet ... we remain distracted by an earlier event which made our heart palpitate. The mechanism here to be actively managed is, to classify the memory of the palpitation as belonging to a different context. One context is classified as something to be thought about later ( the traumatic event ), and then the entire context is moved out of conscious memory. The remaining context is classified as something to be thought about now ( the spreadsheet ), and there by one reduces distractions in the present context, by moving data out of the present context, and into a context which can contain that data outside of conscious memory until it is later retrieved.
