note: sorry my post is so late. i did not notice the email about it on sunday, and tried to get on to the blog via the website. Then yesterday i saw the email but it would not let me log on - kept on telling me that my password was wrong [i put it in like 15 times, changed my password, copy pasted the code... nothing worked]. Then after that, right before i fell asleep i tried again and this time used my personal email address [which is on gmail] and it worked, but i was way too tired to submit a post [but now i will]. As a funny side note, i started to doubt my memory when it kept on telling me my password was wrong =P
POST for Sept 19
One of the themes that came to me in the reading is that we [mankind] seem to know very little about memory and how it functions. Personally, i am not especially disturbed by the lack of knowledge in this particular area, however, after reading Neisser's speech on the failings of memory research, i thought about why it is we don't know more. Neisser argues that the biggest hurdle is that scientist are not willing to study what is interesting in the field of memory research, and he brings up certain examples as well as his own significant bias. What seems to be the overarching problem with Neisser's argument is that he faults neuro-psychologists and neuro-biologists for not being social psychologists. He seems deeply interested in the study of people for who they are [like the ability of a lawyer to remember previous court cases], as opposed to the study of people for their biological and more general characteristics. He does mention of course that a general study of memory has proven inadequate in explaining the phenomenon of memory, but i do not find that he makes a compelling arugement for a better method. In fact it seems to me that he spends time talking about how it would so 'interesting' to research how people are able to perform "literal recall" of things like the bible or of pages of prose that they enjoy. While i would also be very interested in reading a report on that kind of research, i don't understand how it is supposed to explain the mystery of memory to us. It seems to me that what it will do is provide us with phenomenon, something that we can point to and say "that is true", or "this is what happens", but we will not be able to say "people can memorize it because...", or "this is possible thanks to the interaction between ....". Or in other words, our understanding will not necessarily increase. From my limited education on specific memory research, it sounds as though we [scientist everywhere] are simply stumped. Neisser's point of social-psych research being the holy grail for memory research seems like a big reach to me, although as i said before, i would love to read the results on said studies, and we may just get lucky and score some kind of amazing correlation.
My question to pose to the class would be: how much of the general memory research results were obvious to you [the results that the 3rd graders knew], and do you think that if you spent time seriously pondering about it [without large scale experiments] you could gleam more knowledge on the subject? Would there be a limit or an endpoint to what you could gleam?
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2 comments:
From the posting:
"He does mention of course that a general study of memory has proven inadequate in explaining the phenomenon of memory, but i do not find that he makes a compelling arugement for a better method. In fact it seems to me that he spends time talking about how it would so 'interesting' to research how people are able to perform "literal recall" of things like the bible or of pages of prose that they enjoy. While i would also be very interested in reading a report on that kind of research, i don't understand how it is supposed to explain the mystery of memory to us. It seems to me that what it will do is provide us with phenomenon, something that we can point to and say "that is true", or "this is what happens", but we will not be able to say "people can memorize it because...", or "this is possible thanks to the interaction between ....". Or in other words, our understanding will not necessarily increase."
I agree that this idea of pursuing an extremely specific type of memory recall may be frustrating because it appears to be ignoring a greater issue- that we know very little of the intricacies of memory on the whole. However, it may also be necessary. As Neisser points out in his lecture, studying the actual workings of memory is complicated because you either study the way memory works in a lab, or you work with many uncontrolled variables in your research. I think that it is possible that the only plausible approach to memory research would be to conduct many memory "simulations" in a lab like setting and compile the information you receive from these tests into a theory which can then be tested in the "real" world. Something as specific as testing someone's ability to recite or remember pages from their favorite book could possibly reveal a very small specific aspect of memory. When combined with other small specific aspects of memory learned through other controlled tests, a greater idea of the way memory works may be revealed. For example, we cannot assume that the way someone remembers a page from a book is the same way they remember the name of an acquaintance- but by creating controlled experiments to test these two types of memory a greater picture of the working mind may be highlighted and understood.
Studying memory can be done in two situations as suggested in the reading, in settings such as nonsense syllables, which can arguably not be the study of memory, but the study of how much you can train yourself to memorize, or what Neisser deems the more interesting aspects of memory research, how people use memory for their daily lives. We know that people can have great feats of memory if there is a purpose to what they are doing, actors memorize lines, singers memorize songs, lawyers court cases, doctors medical jargon, a linguist the aspects of many different languages etc. In itself studying this type of memory may not indicate overly much (except we can memorize more of what we like, and perhaps a system of cueing) but paired with the study of the brain, and where these different areas of information are stored can be very interesting and telling. It can further indicate how the brain is divided, and if it is divided specifically into our "useful information" for daily lives and passions and the more mundane. The more we are able to combine social psychology with neuro-psychology the more we will be able to understand the hows and whys of memory function. We will not only be able to state the obvious, but perhaps also provide more scientific rational.
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