First, comprehenders lay foundations for their mental structures. Next, they develop their mental structures by mapping on information when that incoming information coheres with the previous information. So, most representations comprise several branching substructures. The building blocks of these mental structures are memory nodes. Memory nodes are activated by incoming stimuli.
Initial activation forms the foundation of mental structures.
Once the foundation is laid, subsequent information is often mapped onto a developing structure because the more coherent the incoming information is with the previous information, the more likely it is to activate similar memory nodes. In contrast, the less coherent the incoming information is, the less likely it is to activate similar memory nodes. In this case, the incoming information might activate a different set of nodes, and the activation of this other set of nodes forms the foundation for a new substructure. Memory nodes are enhanced when the information they represent is necessary for further structure building. They are suppressed when the information they represent is no longer as necessary.