CHAPTER 

 VIII 



EXCHANGE OF INFORMATION ABOUT 

 PATTERNS OF HUMAN BEHAVIOR 



Gregory Bateson, M.A, 



A 



.T THE outset I wish to make two acknowledgments. First, 

 I would like to credit Attneave's work (1) in which he points 

 out the synonymy between what in information theory is called 

 "redundancy" and what in popular parlance is called "pattern." 

 You will see, as I develop what I have to say, that this synonymy 

 is basic. Second, I want to acknowledge a less definable debt to 

 conversations with Alex Bavelas about his experiments involving 

 varieties of contingency in learning contexts. I had hoped that 

 the outcome of these conversations would be a paper in which 

 his name would be included as joint author. Since our diverse 

 professional commitments have prevented our getting together on 

 this, I must take responsibility for the thoughts which his work 

 has stimulated in me. A major part of this paper will be devoted 

 to defining that order of information which I regard as "infor- 

 mation about patterns of human behavior." This involves a 

 restructuring of learning theory. 



Let us assume that all receipt of information is "learning." This 

 will bring within a single theoretical spectrum the whole range of 

 phenomena, beginning with the receipt of a pip by a receiving 

 machine at the end of a wire, up to and including such complex 

 phenomena as the development of neurosis or psychosis under 

 environmental stress. Notice first of all that the receipt of a bit, 

 a yes or no answer to a question, is not usually called "learning" 

 if the receiver already knows to what question the bit is an answer. 

 Psychologists who perform what are usually called learning experi- 



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