wmartin@brl-smoke.ARPA (Will Martin ) (02/21/86)
What's the curent medical/psych thought about short-term & long-term memory? As I (vaguely) recall, at one time it was either being postulated or had been accepted that stuff remained in short-term memory for about 7 minutes, and, if it wasn't transferred over to long-term memory by then, it was lost. I can't make that hypothesis jibe with my personal experience, and so I'd like to see info on what the current thought in this field might be. Let me describe a typical memory-related incident in my own experience; maybe someone could then be able to describe the mechanisms that are going on in the brain to produce this result? I get up in the morning an go into the bathroom. As I sit there, I notice a pair of scissors lying on top of the radiator. I tell myself, "I left those there by mistake last night. When I go back into the bedroom, I want to take the scissors with me and put them back where they belong." I then proceed with the rest of my morning tasks (which take longer than 7 minutes -- more like 10-12), and go back to the bedroom, having completely forgotten about the scissors and failed to take them with me. Hours later, at work, I pick up a pair of scissors and all at once recall the entire morning incident in the bathroom, and also clearly recall that I forgot and that I went into the bedroom without taking the scissors. I then post this note about it all... :-) So, the fact that I can remember the entire scene hours later means that I *must* have transferred a lot of data into my long-term memory. But, if I did that, why did I forget to do what I told myself to do (take the scissors back into the bedroom) at the time I could have (and should have) done it? Why forget then and remember later? I can think of many similar incidents, many related to schedules and time, especially regarding radio programs I wanted to tape or listen to -- I will remember that I want to do this hours in advance of the event, and then completely forget about it until it is *just too late*, like remembering about a 6:30PM program at 7:05PM. When I DO remember, the details are clear and there is no fuzziness or vagueness, but it is too late to do the action I had meant to perform. This particular thing angers me immensely, as I feel doubly betrayed by myself -- if I just completely forgot, I think it would be less annoying. But to forget what I wanted to do until it is *just* too late is to grind my face into the dirt of my failure, and really insult me. So, some of these memory "lapses" (or whatever they may be), are important to me, but others, like the scissors incident described, are trivial and of no consequence. If they were all of some import, it might be reasonable to start to offer various psychoanalytic explanations about self-punishment, but if the process occurs often, with no particular correlation with import, then it should be a for-real psychological or physiological event, with chemical or anatomical explanations. Well, would anyone care to describe the internals behind this sort of event? Pointers to good references (understandable by a layman) would also be useful. Regards, Will Martin UUCP/USENET: seismo!brl-bmd!wmartin or ARPA/MILNET: wmartin@almsa-1.ARPA
ron@brl-smoke.ARPA (Ron Natalie <ron>) (02/22/86)
> What's the curent medical/psych thought about short-term & long-term > memory? As I (vaguely) recall, at one time it was either being > postulated or had been accepted that stuff remained in short-term memory > for about 7 minutes, and, if it wasn't transferred over to long-term > memory by then, it was lost. I can't make that hypothesis jibe with my > personal experience, and so I'd like to see info on what the current > thought in this field might be. What I recall is that short term memory has a limit of seven items. If you don't dump to long-term memory, you will overflow the short term memory if you have more than seven things to remember. I don't recall any time limits. -Ron
omo@mcnc.UUCP (02/25/86)
>What's the curent medical/psych thought about short-term & long-term >memory? As I (vaguely) recall, at one time it was either being >postulated or had been accepted that stuff remained in short-term memory >for about 7 minutes, and, if it wasn't transferred over to long-term >memory by then, it was lost. Gee, I'm glad you asked! Over the past year, I have heard the most *amazing* misinterpretations, bad inferences and simplifications of this work. The original paper was done by George Miller in 1957. It was titled, "The Magical Number 7, + or - 2". Miller presented subjects with *meaningless* and *simple* stimuli (like single digits) and discovered that, on the average, they could recall 7, and the vast majority recalled 5-9. It's been a very long time since I read this paper, and I read many, many similar papers done subsequent to it, so I wouldn't want to stick my neck out on the details of the initial work. This was the first definition of what we now call `short-term memory'. It appears to be a *verbal* storage. Things are held in rote---no meaning. It is the storage you use when you repeat a phone number to remember it. Without rehearsal, information in this verbal storage appears to degenerate within about 30 seconds. It turns out that there is nothing `magic' about these limits. They can be dramatically altered by changing the type of stimuli and conditions (you wouldn't believe how little you can remember if someone introduces noise that won't allow you to rehearse!) Miller came up with a pretty high-falutin' theory about `bits' of information (one of the early examples of the confusion between computer info processing and human info processing causing a big mess), but that was just a theoretical construct. I understand that he has since recanted virtually all of the specific conclusions in that paper. (This is not to devalue the paper---it was *important*) Saying that Miller showed you can only remember 7 items is like saying that Newton showed that apples fall out of trees. This is horrible! What Miller provided was a remarkably robust paradigm with which to track information in memory. Subsequent work went on to establish the `existence' of iconic/echoic and long-term memory. But the human information processing system isn't cut into neat little storage boxes---these are good theoretical models that account for a lot of evidence, that's all. Characteristics of a storage are often measured by `confusion' data. For example, information in iconic storage is thought to be in `literal' (or physical) form, because, when you present stimuli to subjects under optimal iconic conditions (ie, visually and *very* quickly---milliseconds), when they incorrectly report the identity of the stimulus, the wrong answer usually *looks like* the correct stimulus. For short-term memory, wrong answers *sound* like the correct one, and, for long-term memory, the wrong answers have similar *meanings*. But all of this work is largely applicable to rote memorization of largely meaningless material. You obviously can remember more than seven words in a 30-word sentence, and you don't have to go around rehearsing every word in order to remember it! >Let me describe a typical memory-related incident in my own experience; >maybe someone could then be able to describe the mechanisms that are >going on in the brain to produce this result? Well, now, in normal, work-a-day memory, there are a *lot* of factors at work. In the situations you describe, the biggest one is attention. There are about 6 libraries worth of studies on that topic alone, so I can't give it to you in 25 words or less, but, if you don't attend, you won't remember. The part about remembering the scissors at home when you saw the scissors at work is the context affect, or association, maybe, or both. (Or, in techncial terms, the second pair `jogged your memory'.) Actually, they aren't entirely separable. Things are associated in memory and they tend to call each other up. Even the context in which you learned something gets tied in somehow, so, if you want to do better on a test, go study in the room where it's to be taken. (Not a powerful effect, though.) As for your forgetfulness, try this. When you want to remember to do something later, think of something you will be doing around that time, try to visualize the scene very accurately and go through whatever you will be doing. For me, this is usually something I think of at the office that I want to do when I get home. When I get home, I usually hit the refrigerator pretty soon, so I visualize opening the refrigerator door and seeing something like the milk carton (but you better be sure that you have milk!). Keep it simple, rather than elaborate, and repeat the visualization a couple of times, saying, "Remember to call Bill". (Actually, you should only say this if what you want to remember to do is to call Bill |-)) This *really* works for me. One look at that milk carton and "Call Bill" crashes into memory! Not scientifically supported, however, and I don't know how well it would hold up over several days. Please note that none of the above involves `brain mechanisms', just `memory'. The brain people are *much* further behind than the cognitive psychologists, who are still just scratching the surface. *Nothing* is anywhere near as simple (nor as well understood) as you read in the magazines. If you hope to find out (or that *anyone will find out) exactly how memory works, sometime in your lifetime, well, I'd say, "Forget it"!
panos@utcsri.UUCP (Panos Economopoulos) (03/02/86)
On developing your memory (and visualization) there is an
excellent book by Harry Lorayne, called
"How to develop a Super-Power Memory". I have it as a paperback
from Signet. He discusses many techniques and tricks one can use
to improve the organization of the information one wants to remember.
He also stresses the importance of training one's observation powers.
I haven't tried the trick with remembering the 400-digit number
but it's amazing what you can do if you know well 50 memory pegs!!
--
Panos Economopoulos
UUCP: {decvax,linus,ihnp4,uw-beaver,allegra,utzoo}!utcsri!panos
CSNET: panos@torontorcj@burl.UUCP (Curtis Jackson) (03/03/86)
In article <2254@utcsri.UUCP> panos@utcsri.UUCP (Panos Economopoulos) writes: >On developing your memory (and visualization) there is an >excellent book by Harry Lorayne, called >"How to develop a Super-Power Memory". I have it as a paperback >from Signet. He discusses many techniques and tricks one can use >to improve the organization of the information one wants to remember. >He also stresses the importance of training one's observation powers. >I haven't tried the trick with remembering the 400-digit number >but it's amazing what you can do if you know well 50 memory pegs!! Another good book by Harry Lorayne (sp?) is "The Key to Success", which treats the subject of remembering people's names, occupations, hobbies, spouses, etc. etc. etc. Harry has done things before like go into a room where 500 people are partying, ask them each their full name, occupation, spouses full name, employer, job title, and a couple of other things, and at the end of the evening has been able to successfully remember it all. He can reference from name to face, name to occupation, job title to name, anything. I read the book over ten years ago, and I can still remember that Mr. Bonamist was the treasurer of General Foods... -- The MAD Programmer -- 919-228-3313 (Cornet 291) alias: Curtis Jackson ...![ ihnp4 ulysses cbosgd mgnetp ]!burl!rcj ...![ ihnp4 cbosgd akgua masscomp ]!clyde!rcj