-The Argument
David Shenk tells us that "the memory technique used by
all human beings to convert a scattered collection of details in a single
distinct memory" (52). He uses the example of human technique of breaking phone
numbers into smaller sections, saying "remembering ten unrelated items in
the right orders next to impossible; remembering three is no problem" (52), and that this started in "fourth century B.C" (55).
Why do you think this method of creating segments for memorization developed, rather than the
ability to memorize things as a whole piece? Why do you think the
breaking sections into parts is easier to memorize than on the whole? Also think
about how animals, such the digger wasps in Tinbergen's experiment, use
landmarks and/or cognitive maps to locate their habitat, rather than
remembering their exact location of a habitat (Chapter 51). Why do these sole
details that surround the habitat provide a full representation of the location
of whole habitat? Relate the development of memory techniques to the theme of evolution.
Matthew Yang (matt.y.yang2013@gmail.com)
I think the method of memorizing information in small chunks instead of as a whole developed from the need to efficiently memorize information. For example, in Chapter 51, the Clark's Nutcracker uses a cognitive map to memorize the location of its seed caches. Rather than memorize the precise detail of every location a seed cache is, the Clark's nutcracker only has to memorize the location of landmarks to know where the relative location of a seed cache is. Furthermore, by minimizing the amount of detail required, more information can be memorized. In relation to the Clark's Nutcracker and the biology theme of evolution, if more seed caches can be memorized, then more food can be stored for the winter, so only the Clark's Nutcrackers that had evolved to memorize more landmarks were able to survive and reproduce.
ReplyDeleteIn addition, I think breaking long segments of information down into smaller segments is easier to memorize because it actually reduces the amount of information that needs to be memorized. For example, if the number sequence 128947351678 had to be memorized as a whole, then the sequence would be memorized as 1-2-8-9-4-7-3-5-1-6-7-8 with each individual number being a segment; however, by splitting the sequence into groups such as 1289-4735-1678 only 3 segment would have to be memorized (http://education.calumet.purdue.edu/vockell/edPsybook/Edpsy6/edpsy6_working.htm).
The details that the digger wasp and Clark's Nutcracker memorize create the full representation of a location because only those details are essential to create the full representation. Similar to the digger wasp and Clark's Nutcracker, in an experiment done by Cambridge University, words were jumbled up leaving only the first and last letters the same. Interestingly, the test subjects were still able to discern the words, which shows only a few details are needed to create a full representation. (http://www.mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk/people/matt.davis/Cmabrigde/ )
-Edward Wu (edwardwu0@gmail.com)