Thinking about it through an Unjash comedy sketch

When you hear the term "visual support," what comes to mind?

Since I've been hanging around the world of autism and developmental disability support for about 15 years, the term "visual support" is as familiar to me as the word "apple." However, I've finally realized that the term "visual support" seems difficult to understand, and I recently had a "Wait, could it be?!" moment.

For people not involved in education or welfare, I suspect many associate "visual support" with schools for the visually impaired (formerly schools for the blind) or people with visual impairments.

In the world of autism support, we call it "visual support" when we convey things like sounds, time, feelings, and abstract concepts in a visible form because they are difficult to understand.

So, even if you start talking by saying, "Visual support is...", things just keep getting mismatched.

When you try to proceed with communication while having different background knowledge or experiences (schemas) like this,
"What is this guy talking about?"
"Hmm? We were on the same page for a bit, but what they're saying now is different, right?"
These kinds of things happen.
Well, it would be nice if you could realize that, but in the worst case, "I can't deal with someone like this! What a terrible person! I'll sue you!"
That's also possible.
Actually, I think that's what most social media flame wars are about.

When you hear the term "wildlife damage," what comes to mind?

For example,
when you hear the term "wildlife damage,"
Person A living in the city might think of it as an extension of annoying crows rummaging through trash, Person B living on the Shiretoko Peninsula might think of brown bears, a farmer like Person C might imagine wild boars ruining fields, and someone working in forestry might think of deer.
If you proceed with a conversation without confirming what "wildlife damage" refers to, you won't just be on parallel tracks; you'll be drifting further and further apart.

This is the same structure as an Unjash comedy sketch, isn't it?
The conversation proceeds while Person A's perception and Person B's perception are misaligned.
Person A: "The wildlife damage is terrible, you know."
Person B: "Huh? There's damage in the city too?!"
Person A: "Well, you know, when there's trash and stuff..."
Person B: "I see... so even the trash in the city is being damaged... we have no choice but to cull them all."
Person A: "No, no, why would you say something so horrible? There's no need to kill them just for rummaging through trash!"
Person B: "Huh? It's kill or be killed! You're being too soft!"
Person A: "I'm disappointed. I didn't know you had such violent ideas, Person B."

Things like that. This happens because they proceed with the conversation without confirming the meaning of the term "wildlife damage" with each other (definition of words).

When you hear the word "everyone," how many people do you think of?

When a child begs for a toy, they say, "Everyone has one!"
But adults respond with a sharp, "Who is 'everyone'?"

Adults dismiss it by saying, "Look, there are only three people. Most kids don't have one, right!"

But for a child, the number of people they know and interact with—the denominator—is smaller than for an adult, and since the three friends they always play with occupy most of their life, they think, "Three people is everyone, right..."

These kinds of misunderstandings don't just happen in broad categories like adults and children or different generations; they happen between work colleagues, business partners, friends, and even family members who you would think understand each other the best.
And you should assume that the world is built on the accumulation of "assumptions" that we understand each other, not just regarding "words" or "terms."

It would be fine if it were just parallel lines, though.

In a comedy sketch, the audience can laugh because they are watching from the outside,
but when it's the people involved, it turns into "Why don't you understand me!!" and eventually, "What a terrible person for not understanding this!"

The conversation doesn't just run parallel; it drifts further apart.

In Kansai, there is one of Japan's largest junctions called the "Oyamazaki Junction." If you're interested, I'd love for you to look it up, but
while driving at several dozen kilometers per hour, there are several consecutive forks in the road.
And if you make one mistake, you end up going in a completely different direction. At worst, you end up going back the way you came. You have to be that careful just to get to the direction you want to go.

So, if you say, 'It's one hour from Oyamazaki Junction,'
even though you started from the same place, an hour later you'll end up in completely different locations.
It would be like four people touring in a group, where one ends up at the Sea of Japan in Maizuru, one at the Seto Inland Sea in Kobe, one heading toward Ise Bay, and one in landlocked Gifu.

If this were a YouTuber's project, you could watch it and think it's funny, but
if you were the one driving, you'd feel like crying, right?

Schema Industry

I've come to realize that I need to reaffirm that the scenery the other person is seeing is different from the scenery I am seeing—that our schemas are different.
There's no way to get through to someone without confirming or bridging those differences in schema.

And so, I think I need to work in this 'schema industry,' so to speak.