
Recognizing vs. Generating - owenshen24
https://mlu.red/52622266310.html
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sixhobbits
This is most obvious when learning a second language. If you're eg an English
speaker learning German vocabulary, you soon notice that you can look at the
German words and know what they mean quite easily, but the other way round is
significantly more difficult.

After learning some vocab you learn that it's barely ever worth the time to
even study German->English as English->German is "real" learning while the
former just makes you feel like you are.

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082349872349872
Easy mode: each participant in a dialogue speaks their own language.

Hard mode: each participant in a dialogue speaks the other's language.

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danurman
I work in technical product support and I find this to be a useful framework
that captures some important considerations I've dealt with.

When I interview candidates and give them a troubleshooting exercise to test
their diagnostic skills, some candidates will use what I call the "shotgun"
approach - list out a bunch of tests and things to check, but in such a way
that the tests don't build on each other and could be performed in any order.
This is the sort of approach that works for "tier 1" style support where
you're just running down a checklist.

The best candidates will use what I call the "iterative" approach - try a
test, understand what the outcome implies, and then try another test based on
that new knowledge in an act-learn-repeat loop. This shows me that they will
be able to handle _novel_ product issues that haven't been seen before and
aren't on any checklist.

I knew that the latter approach required a stronger mental model, but now I
think a more useful framing is that the shotgun approach is about Recognizing
and the iterative approach is about Generating. Having this framing is likely
to improve my candidate review process and reports.

Also, because we only hire folks who demonstrate the capability to use the
iterative approach, when I find someone on my team using the shotgun approach
with real customers, my assumption is that their mental model of the
product/tech involved is insufficient and my response is to help them build up
their understanding. I think now I'm also going to try framing this to them as
upgrading from Recognizing to Generating and see if that helps.

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ryanmjacobs
I made a similar distinction in high school. We used to have 20-question
multiple-choice comprehension quizzes on our readings. It was incredibly easy
to get 90-100% scores. This is a test of recognition.

However, writing a summary or analysis of a text is much more telling of
knowledge/understanding. You have to dig a lot deeper. This is recollection.

Today, I try to avoid the trap of false confidence that comes from
"recognition". To show you know something, you need to put away all of the
source materials and write down what you know and see where that takes you.

Sorry, this might be a slightly tangential anecdote, but this article made me
think back to that.

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Smaug123
It's a distinction in machine learning, too: discriminative approaches vs
generative approaches, calculating P(Y | X) "learning to assign a
classification to a given thing" vs P(X | Y) "learning common features of
things with a given classification".

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owenshen24
Indeed! I think I actually had this in a previous version of the post, but
ended up removing it during editing.

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maest
Reminds me a bit of P vs NP. It's easy to verify, hard to generate.

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owenshen24
Yeah, I felt that too, after writing about this.

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andersource
I would say there's a whole spectrum: understanding a proof ("recognizing") is
on one end. Rewriting a proof from scratch lies along the spectrum but it's
not the other end in my opinion. Can you prove a variation? Could you come up
with the proof on your own in the first place?

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pcwelder
Sometimes you don't need to have generative knowledge. I can recognise dog and
distinguish it from a cat. Tell me to draw one and you'll get a degenerate
outline which only remotely resembles a dog.

For all my purposes I don't need to learn how to draw.

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skybrian
With music there are many different ways of generating.

Some of them are: hearing the song in your head, muscle memory (singing and
with different instruments), remembering the chords, being able to play in one
key versus any key.

To remember a song robustly, it helps to use these different kinds of memory
to reinforce each other.

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parenthesis
It's really weird when my fingers 'remember' how to play something but 'I'
don't.

It's really frustrating when I know how to play something but I can't get my
fingers to do it.

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maps7
This seems to be similar to "Look, Cover, Write" approach that children are
taught to learn how to spell.

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7532yahoogmail
Agree. We'll put & explained.

