It is sometimes claimed that we can hold up to 9 objects or numbers in our mind’s eye without the sequence coming unraveled at either end. Nine is really pushing the limits for me, but I can just about get there if I arrange the numbers or objects three across by three down. Then, the addition of an extra item on the fourth line draws the eye to it and the mind lets go of the rest.
This ability is clearly not the same as memory although people who claim to be visual learners might have an advantage over the rest of us. Are there any auditory learners by admission? I haven’t met any. Nor have I met anyone who claimed to be a kinesthetic learner.
I have long been skeptical about the self-professed ability to remember information more easily according as we do so by means of our eyes or by means of our ears. The visual auditory distinction may have more to do with the kinds of habits we’ve been cultivating than with memory itself. And the kind of habit that the western man has been cultivating for the last few hundred years is that of finding things on a piece of paper, lately on a screen.
The ability to remember varies directly as the ability to process. Suppose a voice recorder from a fatal flight was found. That voice recorder would be rightly called a cockpit voice recorder.
A cockpit voice recorder matters to the extent it contains some data about the last minutes of the flight. Hence, data from the cockpit voice recorder.
Suppose that data was analysed. We could then talk about the analysis of data from the cockpit voice recorder but not data analysis from the cockpit voice recorder. We could lump the words together and have: cockpit voice recorder data analysis.
Suppose the analysis was mishandled, manipulated or otherwise skewed. While mishandling of analysis of data from the cockpit voice recorder sounds OK, a headline would scream: ‘Cockpit voice recorder data analysis bungle’. Where does the string of nouns stop?
Suppose the bungling of the analysis of data from the cockpit voice recorder was then covered up by people who had decided long before the analysis was carried out whom to blame and whom to exonerate. The headline would then run: ‘Cockpit voice recorder data analysis bungle cover-up’. I can hold this information in my mind without much effort, not because I remember the order in which the words appear in the sequence but because I can process it into something that makes sense, though, admittedly, I’d rather have it written than spoken to me. The important thing is that these are not random words. We rely on the relations between the atomic concepts for our understanding.
Suppose the cover-up was investigated. Might it not be the case that our headline would now say: ‘Cockpit voice recorder data analysis bungle cover-up probe’?
And what if the investigation into the cover-up of the whole affair itself was a failure? We could compose a suitable line: ‘Cockpit voice recorder data analysis bungle cover-up probe fiasco.’ English is compositional that way, and if understanding doesn’t break down, what is to stop me?
Suppose an independent enquiry was ordered into what was now a failed attempt to discover the truth. That could be heralded as: ‘Cockpit voice recorder data analysis bungle cover-up probe fiasco enquiry.’ Who said that English is a verbal language?
And suppose that that enquiry didn’t get anywhere. We’d see a headline: ‘Cockpit voice recorder data analysis bungle cover-up probe fiasco enquiry botched.’
I can’t vouch for others, but what I feel happens in my mind is that the whole description before ‘enquiry’ clusters around ‘enquiry’ in a shapeless mass, leaving no more than a trace of its content in my memory. It has been zipped up into a tidy bundle. I can’t easily repeat the words nor form a seamless sentence but if someone was to quiz me on the cabin voice recorder or unbiased analysis, I’d know I was being contradicted. I zip things up and file them away.
This ability is clearly not the same as memory although people who claim to be visual learners might have an advantage over the rest of us. Are there any auditory learners by admission? I haven’t met any. Nor have I met anyone who claimed to be a kinesthetic learner.
I have long been skeptical about the self-professed ability to remember information more easily according as we do so by means of our eyes or by means of our ears. The visual auditory distinction may have more to do with the kinds of habits we’ve been cultivating than with memory itself. And the kind of habit that the western man has been cultivating for the last few hundred years is that of finding things on a piece of paper, lately on a screen.
The ability to remember varies directly as the ability to process. Suppose a voice recorder from a fatal flight was found. That voice recorder would be rightly called a cockpit voice recorder.
A cockpit voice recorder matters to the extent it contains some data about the last minutes of the flight. Hence, data from the cockpit voice recorder.
Suppose that data was analysed. We could then talk about the analysis of data from the cockpit voice recorder but not data analysis from the cockpit voice recorder. We could lump the words together and have: cockpit voice recorder data analysis.
Suppose the analysis was mishandled, manipulated or otherwise skewed. While mishandling of analysis of data from the cockpit voice recorder sounds OK, a headline would scream: ‘Cockpit voice recorder data analysis bungle’. Where does the string of nouns stop?
Suppose the bungling of the analysis of data from the cockpit voice recorder was then covered up by people who had decided long before the analysis was carried out whom to blame and whom to exonerate. The headline would then run: ‘Cockpit voice recorder data analysis bungle cover-up’. I can hold this information in my mind without much effort, not because I remember the order in which the words appear in the sequence but because I can process it into something that makes sense, though, admittedly, I’d rather have it written than spoken to me. The important thing is that these are not random words. We rely on the relations between the atomic concepts for our understanding.
Suppose the cover-up was investigated. Might it not be the case that our headline would now say: ‘Cockpit voice recorder data analysis bungle cover-up probe’?
And what if the investigation into the cover-up of the whole affair itself was a failure? We could compose a suitable line: ‘Cockpit voice recorder data analysis bungle cover-up probe fiasco.’ English is compositional that way, and if understanding doesn’t break down, what is to stop me?
Suppose an independent enquiry was ordered into what was now a failed attempt to discover the truth. That could be heralded as: ‘Cockpit voice recorder data analysis bungle cover-up probe fiasco enquiry.’ Who said that English is a verbal language?
And suppose that that enquiry didn’t get anywhere. We’d see a headline: ‘Cockpit voice recorder data analysis bungle cover-up probe fiasco enquiry botched.’
I can’t vouch for others, but what I feel happens in my mind is that the whole description before ‘enquiry’ clusters around ‘enquiry’ in a shapeless mass, leaving no more than a trace of its content in my memory. It has been zipped up into a tidy bundle. I can’t easily repeat the words nor form a seamless sentence but if someone was to quiz me on the cabin voice recorder or unbiased analysis, I’d know I was being contradicted. I zip things up and file them away.
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