Mind · Reasoning
Lossprint
Read a pattern in how several lossy renderings of one source differ in what they lose
Definition
Mechanism
The same source is rendered into several targets, such as languages, formats, modalities or audiences, each of which drops something; a single RepresentationSwap becomes one of several. For each rendering, what it lost is listed against the source. The loss lists are then compared. A loss every rendering shares suggests something all the examined targets resist. A loss only one rendering shows suggests a blind spot of that rendering or its target. Losses that occur together suggest a structure in the source that those renderings drop as a unit. These are hypotheses about the renderings examined, not established limits of their targets. The finding is stated in terms of these differences, not in terms of what the renderings preserve.
Invariants
- Uses at least two renderings of the same source into different targets.
- Each rendering's losses are listed against the source, not against another rendering.
- The reported pattern is stated as a relation between loss lists.
Risks
Failure modes
Invisible loss
something no rendering carried and nobody listed drops out of every comparison.
Careless rendering
losses caused by a poor rendering are read as structure in the source.
Shared-loss tunnel vision
only what every rendering lost is examined, so target-specific blind spots are missed.
Relationships
Builds on
References
Exposing hidden errors by changing the data modality
Nothing in this library builds on this pattern yet.
Reference