Yesterday, I was reading one of the books I'm using for my dissertation. The discussion was on working memory and the point was that it could only hold a limited amount of informatiion. The author presented a number of around 7 digits. The author then asked the reader to close his/her eyes and then try to recall the number. No problem. Then he asked to count backward by 2 from 99 to 91 and then to try and recall the number. He said that most people weren't able to; I was. Not only did I recall it but it became like a song that gets "stuck" in your head.
I found this interesting and began to examine why I was able to remember the number so easily. I realized that I'd used 2 strategies. First, I'd parsed the number into "musical" units. This is something I do when I'm trying to remember a phone number. Second, I'd focused on the visual shape of the numbers. Keep in mind that I wasn't aware of having done this until after I'd recalled it following the counting back exercise.
A bit ago I tried to recall the number but can't. I do, however recall that it had a double number--either 33 or 44, and had a 5, (think it began with), an 8, and maybe a 7. However, I don't remember the order, nor can I recall in which of the many books I have sitting around I read it in. (This is a curse when one is trying to write a dissertation which requires references.) Sometimes I don't even realize that something I'm reading will become relevant at some later time--either within my dissertation or everyday conversation. Nor do I know what my brain will end up remembering that I wouldn't expect it to. It's a mystery why it chooses to remember what it does and promptly forgets other things--especially information that is clearly relevant to a task I'm working on. IOW, my brain seems to have a "mind of its own!"
The reason I'm bringing this up, as dull as it may seem to anyone who is not an academic and even someone who is but in a different field, is because I don't want to lose this bit of insight about working memory. This personal experience also adds validity to the concept some other author I can't remember proposed about working memory being divided by senses--a conception part, visual part, and audio part. Arg, something else to have to try and remember who said this and then find it! Anyway, in this case I'm using this post as a journal. Why and how was I able to perform a task the author (and I only have books by "experts") said wasn't generally doable? What does that say about my own brain? I've been diagnosed as being ADD but as any doctor (medical or PhD) will tell you, labels only tell you so much and don't address individual characteristics and brain configurations. It's that "snowflake" metaphor. Despite humans having over 99% the same DNA, that less than 1% accounts for an incredible amount of diversity and difference. No wonder MDs and shrinks are thought of as detectives!
Secondly, for anyone who actually does check my blog, I wanted to give you a flavor of what I'm up to these days from a bird's eye view. It's one thing to say I'm working on my dissertation in x and y subject, am really enjoying the experience, bla, bla, bla, and another to actually show what that means in terms of specifics.
Now, I've got to go find that number and that book about different aspects of working memory or it will drive me nuts all day!
15 minutes later...
I found the number: 783445. I remembered all the correct numbers and even the correct pair (44, preceded by a 3), but interestingly, reversed the first and last numbers. Note that I added the 7 last but thought the string had begun with a 5. Also, it is 6 digits long, not 7 but I do know that research has indicated that working memory generally holds up to 7 bits of information. But I think that's information of the same kind. Apparently, I still had empty "buffers" for audio and visual memory available to use which enabled me to remember it after the counting back exercise. While this is only anectdotal and not scientific evidence, it works for me!
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