David Shenk examines the implications of his studies on the limitations of memory (page 236). How does the fact that "fuzziness" of memory serves as a highly advanced feature in our brain support Shenk's assertion that all people have the same potential memory capacity? Relate your answer to Shenk's claims in argument section. Also, relate answer to selective advantage of memory fuzziness.
Joseph Hugener
In the study of “S.”, the man “recorded only information,” and could not understand or make generalizations about the information that he observed. He was able to remember specific charts he was shown twenty years prior, but was unable to discern patterns in those charts. In most people, that storage space that contained every detail of his life, keeps a few select details that stood out in some way, as well as a “general impression” that was formed from those details (237-9). It is likely that the more complex and in depth the memory is, the more space it takes up. Remembering all of the minute details of an event would take up more space than impressions, and impressions made from those impressions would take up even less space, et cetera. So even though our memories seem “hazier” than the sharp details that S. can remember, we are actually able to remember more and store more useful information than he is.
ReplyDeleteA hazier, broader-spectrum memory would be a huge selective advantage due to our resulting ability to make inferences. If three times we see a black and white cat that was roughly the same size sit by our back door and then walk away into the trees, we assume that it was the same cat. If we saw nine tiny ducklings walking in a line behind a large duck, we assume that these ducklings were babies following their mother. If we smelled smoke, we assume there was a fire nearby. These inferences allow us to make judgments about our environment, such as the likelihood that a predator could be hiding in a specific place, or the relative safety of one location versus another. The ability to make those judgments would enable people with hazier, more holistic memory systems to survive and reproduce, making a hazier memory a selective advantage.
Sometimes, if a current setting or event provides the same or a similar impression to one already stored in your memory, it will trigger the older memory. The more often a certain impression is brought to your attention, the easier it will be to notice patterns in the types of things that cause them, and results associated with them. In this way, people are able to use observations of their environment to make connections between two seemingly separate ideas, such as “This land is wet” and “There are a lot of earthworms here” to form larger associations, such as “Earthworms like wet environments”. Associations like this can help to identify locations where food sources can be found, which would also increase the chances of survival and reproduction (http://www.mendeley.com/research/drawing-conclusions-from-memory-and-observation-1/).
(Rachael Affenit, rachael.affenit@comcast.net)