These two
forms of cognition were distinguished by linguist Derek
Bickerton. (Language
and species (1990), Language
and human behavior (1996), and
others.) They refer to brain processes that depend for their elicitation on
external stimulus (online), versus processes that can originate autonomously
from internal processing (offline). Offline processing, an evolutionary product
of language, originated in the long development of protolanguage—language-based
concepts without syntax for their manipulation—by homo erectus; and marking the beginning of our species, the sudden
emergence of syntax. Protolanguage provided the neural space for primitive
offline processing, as when our ancestors could call up the thought of
potential prey—without its having any particular empirical presence—by having
learned the term for woolly mammoth. With syntax came the ability to think of anything. Thus, language evolved, more than as a tool for communication, as a vehicle for thought. (The most basic
argument is that language could not have developed for communication because
the ability to communicate depends on the listener’s ability to understand. A
language mutation in a single organism, serving communication, would be
useless.)
Online processing can be applied
exclusively to matter that is immediately present. Only the offline variety of thinking, created by
language—gradually through protolanguage and punctuatedly through syntax—enables
abstraction. Distance and abstraction
are the fundamental facets of construal level.
One way
that abstractness and psychological distance seem to differ from offline
processing is that construal level is a continuum, whereas offline/online processing
is a dichotomy. Intermediate construal levels must be generated from elemental proportions.
The dichotomous underpinnings of construal level are apparent in absolutely
extreme construal levels—pure expressions; some processes are entirely online,
like scratching an itch, and others, like thinking about metaphysics, are
entirely offline. This pattern differs from dimensions, such as intelligence or
extraversion, which are unbounded, without maxima. Construal level reveals its
dichotomous essence in its modelike quality: a concrete/near and abstract/far
polarity, despite the presence—even predominance—of intermediates.
I’m aware
of one interpretation alternative to construal level as degree of offline
processing. It comes from economist Robin Hanson’s homo hypocritus theory, which, among other interesting claims, holds that abstract
construal serves impression management. Hanson’s theory says that our
ancestors evolved mental modes involving concrete and abstract construal
(Hanson terms them “near-mode” and “far-mode”) under pressure for separating
the functions related to representing things as they are, on the one hand, and
on the other, representing the self as we would like to be perceived. For
Hanson, abstract construal is mainly about our ideals. Accordingly, he
identifies abstract construal with Freud’s super-ego (conscientious tendency)
and concrete construal with the id (impulses for immediate gratification).
On the
present offline-processing analysis, abstract construal serves foresight more
than moral hypocrisy, although morality and moral hypocrisy do require offline
processes; in fact, they seem
particularly insulated from online processing, and practical offline
processing generally depends on the testing of abstract intuitions against
concrete facts. Thus harnessed, offline thinking serves foresight, the abstract
construals capturing essential causal relations for the sake of accurate
long-term prediction.
The
critical concrete fact that may decide the issue in favor of online/offline
processing is that efforts at impression management, termed
signaling, typically occurs
online, in direct communication with another person, based on immediate
perceptions. If, as Hanson claims, humans evolved two modes because the
knowledge needed to manipulate the world would contaminate human efforts to
impress others, then these modes are richly contaminated, because social
signaling, in the prototypical face-to-face interaction, relies heavily on
“near-mode” processing.
The
strongest argument for a moralistic/hypocritical adaptation behind abstract
construal is the human practice of fashioning arguments opportunistically, not
as a tool to reach correct conclusions, but only as justification, as if one
were defending against accusers. My alternative explanation is the opinion/belief
analysis. We form and defend opinions in deliberation, whereas we act on
beliefs. Abstract construal developed (during the protolanguage stage) under
selective pressure for good deliberators.
