Skip to main content

Basics - In One Ear and Out the Other - NYTimes.com

Popularity Report

Total Popularity Score: 0
Loading...
Loading...
Loading...
Loading...
Loading...
Loading...

Rank

Bookmark History

Saved by 5 people (0 private), first by anonymouse user on 2009-03-17


Public Comment

on 2009-03-18 by brainious

This information is outdated. Current knowledge has showed that short working memory is more less 3 or 4 items.

Public Sticky notes

For researchers who study memory, the ease with which people forget jokes is one of those quirks, those little skids on the neuronal banana peel, that end up revealing a surprising amount about the underlying architecture of memory.

Highlighted by brainious

Welcome to the human brain, your three-pound throne of wisdom with the whoopee cushion on the seat.

Highlighted by shanta

In understanding human memory and its tics, Scott A. Small, a neurologist and memory researcher at Columbia, suggests the familiar analogy with computer memory.

Highlighted by brainious

though scientists used to believe that short- and long-term memories were stored in different parts of the brain, they have discovered that what really distinguishes the lasting from the transient is how strongly the memory is engraved in the brain, and the thickness and complexity of the connections linking large populations of brain cells.

Highlighted by brainious

work not by conforming to pattern recognition routines but by subverting them. “Jokes work because they deal with the unexpected, starting in one direction and then veering off into another,”

Highlighted by brainious

Really great jokes

Highlighted by brainious

“What makes a joke successful are the same properties that can make it difficult to remember.”

Highlighted by brainious

“We humans are pretty good at gist recall but have difficulty with being exact,” he said. Though anecdotes can be told in broad outline, jokes live or die by nuance, precision and timing. And while emotional arousal normally enhances memory, it ends up further eroding your attention to that one killer frill. “Emotionally arousing material calls your attention to a central object,” Dr. Schacter said, “but it can make it difficult to remember peripheral details.”

Highlighted by brainious

The frontal lobes that rifle through stored memories and perform other higher cognitive tasks tend to shut down when the lower brain senses danger and demands that energy be shunted its way.

Highlighted by brainious