How I ever wonder, how does so many people have so many different answers to a simple “1+1” problem.
To put the question into perspective, we have all heard of the “Standard Deviation” term from basic statistics, if not, this measures the variability of the sample or population data points. In this context, I refer to the deviation of peoples’ answers. When every test comes out, everyone would have different answers, and some get 90s and some score a 70. This is very explanatory just by the different ways people interpret the question, the amount of memory related to the answer they could recall, the comprehension of the answer, the level of basic language proficiency (yes, this is a large factor when trying to find a solution), etc…. And the professor would say, the standard deviation of the class for this exam is 8 which is pretty moderate for an exam, SD = 20 is often rarely found among exams, and SD = 0 is the “perfect clone world” where everyone is programmed to spit out the same output through the exact same thought process.
Through this toy example, I just want to emphasize the importance of a person’s past experience towards his/her output/solution/thoughts. Sometimes, a statement of something could be interpreted 180 degrees backwards by someone else. I guess this is where life experiences comes into play. We try to relate the question/statement we hear to the past experience we had or heard of, and generate a interpretation to the question/statement. This is why I’m really interested in people’s life experiences, not the flashy achievements on the news but the journey that built up everyone’s mental model.