“The ‘eyeball to eyeball’ imagery made for great drama (it features in the 2000 movie “13 Days”), but it has contributed to some of our most disastrous foreign policy decisions, from the escalation of the Vietnam War under Johnson to the invasion of Iraq under George W. Bush.”
“A new information-theoretical model of human sensory perception and memory sheds light on some peculiarities of the nervous system.”
http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2012/thinking-logarithmically-1005
“Almost a year after the New Jersey Supreme Court made a sweeping ruling aimed at resolving the “troubling lack of reliability in eyewitness identifications,” it issued instructions on Thursday for judges to give jurors to help them better evaluate such evidence in criminal trials.”
“Remember that guy from 300? What was his name? ARG!!! It turns out our brains make and recall memories in different ways. In this episode of Crash Course Psychology, Hank talks about the way we do it, what damaging that process can do to us, and that guy… with the face and six pack… ”
“In this REALLY IMPORTANT EPISODE of Crash Course Psychology, Hank talks about how we remember and forget things, why our memories are fallible, and the dangers that can pose.”
“On July 29th, 1985, a 36-year-old woman named Penny Beerntsen went for a jog on the beach near her home. About a mile into her run, she passed a man in a leather jacket, said hello and kept running. On her way back, he re-appeared. What happened next would cause Penny to question everything she thought she knew about judging people — and, in the end, her ability to be certain of anything.”
What is the value of eyewitness testimony? What are its limitations?
“Researchers are now corroborating what some trauma sufferers have happened upon by chance: Focusing on a highly engaging visual-spatial task, such as playing video games
, may significantly reduce the occurrence of flashbacks, the mental images concerning the trauma that intrude on the sufferer afterward.”
http://www.livescience.com/19894-tetris-treat-ptsd-flashbacks.html
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Today we have books, photographs, computers and an entire superstructure of external devices to help us store our memories outside our brains, but it wasn’t so long ago that culture depended on individual memories. A trained memory was not just a handy tool but also a fundamental facet of any worldly mind. It was considered a form of character-building, a way of developing the cardinal virtue of prudence and, by extension, ethics. Only through memorizing, the thinking went, could ideas be incorporated into your psyche and their values absorbed.”
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/02/20/magazine/mind-secrets.html?_r=0
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The process of transferring information from STM to LTM involves the encoding or consolidation of information. This is not a function of time, that is, the longer a memory stayed in STM, the more likely it was to be placed into LTM; but on organizing complex information in STM before it can be encoded into LTM. In this process of organization, the meaningfulness or emotional content of an item may play a greater role in its retention into LTM. As instructional designers, we must find ways to make learning relevant and meaningful enough for the learner to make the important transfer of information to long-term memory.”
TOK Topics 