| Abstract: | Psychologists and cognitive scientists interested in the nature of internal representations of human knowledge often use observable regularities or structures to infer what the innate constraints on those representations must be like. It is possible, however, that certain structures might come about only when a group of people share a knowledge domain. Furthermore, it is possible that there are analyzable constraints on knowledge structures that emerge when knowledge is being shared. Such constraints are referred to in this paper as “shareability” constraints. A number of examples of observable structures in human knowledge are discussed in terms of shareability constraints. An attempt is made to determine which sorts of structures are most shareable, and how those structures may differ from the sorts of structures that are easily represented by the individual mind but not easily shared between minds. |
