Good Thinking
Good Thinking
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The thinking processes involved in interactive fiction may be understood as an application of Robert J. Sternberg's componential theory of intelligence. Expressed in a 1984 article in Educational Leadership ("How Can We Teach Intelligence?" Sept., 38-48) and elaborated on in his book Intelligence Applied (1986, New York: Harcourt), it tries to understand intelligence partly in rms of three kinds of component processes. "Metacomponents" control intelligent behavior by Tanning, monitoring, and evaluating it. "Performance components," such as inferring similarities and differences, actually carry out the plans for thinking that the metacomponents decide on. And "knowledge acquisition components" enable the thinker to gain new information, including information that the other kinds of components may use. For example, if I were deciding to buy one of two automobiles, the metacomponents of my intelligence would enable me to choose comparing and contrasting as part of my strategy for making a good decision. I would also use metacomponents to monitor my strategy as I used it and to evaluate its outcome. The actual comparing and contrasting, though, would be performance components; and my techniques for gathering information about the cars, such as reading about them or directly inspecting them, would be knowledge acquisition components. Interactive fiction, like any kind of literature, involves all three kinds of components, but it offers an especially compelling approach to metacomponents in that it forces readers to think about how they are controlling their thinking. |