Observation

[pmbguy]

A few years ago I watched a documentary about human behaviour, memory and attention
In the documentary a group of about 30 observers are asked to count exactly how many times a basketball is passed between 5 or so basket ball players. The observers are viewing the activity from the bleachers.
After about 30sec of passing the ball it is put down and the observers had to note how many times the ball was passed. They are also asked whether they recall anything strange occurring at all.
They averaged well in counting the passes.
Very few said they saw anything strange, of those who did only 1 or 2 had correctly recalled the strange occurrence.

The strange occurrence was a man in a Yeti suit running around the basketball court between the players! ........ And almost nobody saw it!

When the observers were shown the video of what actually happened they were shocked!

It shows us how limited our ability for observation really is. If we were consciously aware of how little we are aware of, we would struggle to function.

Sometimes when I think I can’t work through a problem and I can’t see the answer, I think of this documentary. It reminds me that there are infinitely more aspects I am not currently observing even though they are right in front of me.

[Dave A]

I recall seeing the video and the story somewhere.

It's the downside of focus. If the observers hadn't been so focused on counting the passes, there's no doubt most, if not all, would have noticed the guy in the Yeti suit.

Something else to consider, especially if you've watched much of Derren Brown's stuff - the subliminal mind probably did notice.

[pmbguy]

I am fascinated by the human mind...
How focus can sometimes blinker.
The other pole is over absorption. Great ideas but not focussed on one for long

I find the method of compartmentalisation very affective for dealing with focus-distraction and memory. I try build specific and general compartments or boxes in my mind, into which I place different and random content, anything. It makes archiving easier and clearer......I am not crazy.

[adrianh]

How do you do it mentally? My short term memory is absolutely terrible and I find that I am often unable to access my memory. I would get stuck mid sentence waiting for a word, name or concept (sometimes they come and sometimes they don't). Or I would think about a recent event, like having lunch, and honestly not know whether I had lunch or not. It just seems that if I do not make an absolute point of trying to retain an event at the time that it occurs that it gets flushed out of short term memory into the bin. Yet I am able to remember to oddest most complex details of things that capture my imagination. I catch myself wondering what colour underwear I have on and I honestly don't know though I did see the colour a couple of times today. I'll say this much, I would never trust my own testimony in court because I simply cannot say for sure that I trust my own memory.

[HR Solutions]

Yes it is fascinating. I have the same short term memory loss. Sometimes I can get off the phone and 5 minutes later I cant for the life of me remember who I spoke to. Perhaps its an age thing.

[wynn]

Thanks, I just remembered to make an important call.

[adrianh]

Some of us came fitted with 1Mb of static sensitive RAM and a 8 bit data bus with a loose plug! unlike most who have 1Gb ofram and a 16bit bus. Then of course there are those who have 16Gb of ram and a 32bit bus. And then there are the heavyweights likee my brother who came fitted with 20Tbyte of ram and a 256bit wide data bus....

[HR Solutions]

lol ... and then there are those that came equiped with 16Gb ram that is faulty

[adrianh]

True, a young know it all that can recite the entire MBA manual and doesn't quite know what to do with the information comes to mind....

[pmbguy]

How do you do it mentally? My short term memory is absolutely terrible and I find that I am often unable to access my memory. I would get stuck mid sentence waiting for a word, name or concept (sometimes they come and sometimes they don't). Or I would think about a recent event, like having lunch, and honestly not know whether I had lunch or not. It just seems that if I do not make an absolute point of trying to retain an event at the time that it occurs that it gets flushed out of short term memory into the bin. Yet I am able to remember to oddest most complex details of things that capture my imagination. I catch myself wondering what colour underwear I have on and I honestly don't know though I did see the colour a couple of times today. I'll say this much, I would never trust my own testimony in court because I simply cannot say for sure that I trust my own memory.

My memory is reasonably good, but my wife would not agree.

What I do with compartmentalisation is mostly.....method of loci

The Method of Loci (plural of Latin locus for place or location), also called the memory palace, is a mnemonic device introduced in ancient Roman and Greek rhetorical treatises (in the anonymous Rhetorica ad Herennium, Cicero's De Oratore, and Quintilian's Institutio oratoria). The items to be remembered in this mnemonic system are mentally associated with specific physical locations.[1] It relies on memorized spatial relationships to establish, order and recollect memorial content. The term is most often found in specialised works on psychology, neurobiology and memory, though it was used in the same general way at least as early as the first half of the nineteenth century in works on rhetoric, logic and philosophy.[2]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Method_of_loci

The net is also full of all sorts of memory games... research shows it works. It may sound like work or boring, and it is in the beginning, but after a while it can get fun (15min a day).

http://www.mindgames.com/memory-games.php

This will improve your memory from day one, for work and life.

My default memory is selective. I use as many visible representations of work paraphernalia as practical to overcome this. I try building visual systems on a big white board, diary, A4 on the wall etc. and in my mind.

I have just been reminded of something I don’t want to forget...

[Dave A]

All that talk of RAM had me giggling a bit - as it stands for Random Access Memory (which seemed fitting somehow )

But a little research on RAM acronyms yielded this snippet too:

Read And Modify (original meaning when referring to computer memory)

Also fairly appropriate, come to think of it!

[Mike C]

I think that Adrian makes an important point here.

if I do not make an absolute point of trying to retain an event at the time that it occurs that it gets flushed

I remember a teacher at school (many years ago) who, when the scholar would say "I forgot!" would respond with ... "You have to remember first before you can forget."

[pmbguy]

- the subliminal mind probably did notice.

Unquestionably

Members of the same group would probably recall the event later. In similar studies it was found that some participants will recall the event, some recall after one hour, some through introspection-focus, meditation, hypnotherapy, some all of a sardine recall it 1 year later. Some never will recall it.
Nobody recalls the event in exactly the same manner, some recall totally different events

The un-conscience observation of the event is still taken into consideration and calculation by the mind. The fact that the event happened is clearly recorded in our sub-conscience. The human-mind will still add the data and reflect. Thought and behaviour would then be changed if needed. The sub-conscience will then determine the conscience. However, the event captured in our sub-conscience or conscience is only our perception of the event, Adding a further dimension, perception

I wonder in which manner the “code” for the yeti event is written in the mind of the observers who did not “see” the yeti?

[adrianh]

I do not believe that our memories are like video machines recording whatever we see. Think about it, we are fooled by TV screens that scan faster than our eyes can see, our eyes have blindspots and limit central focus. Our eyes saccade all the time and our minds builds up a picture based on the continual snapshots in different time and position. Further, there are 100's of ways to fol our eyes through "illusions" that use the tricks or shortcomings built into our visual systems. We may store more than we conciously perceive but we certainly don't store our own continuous visual field. Come to think of it the same applies to our ears, we filter our surroundings out and perceive what we are concentrating on, we do not store the entire auditory field. Of course some store more than others and some are better at it than others but I think that our circuitry is optimized in the same way that a JPG file is stored vs a BMP. Further, besides all the physical processing limitations we also have perceptual limitations in that we observe and remember things within our mental frame of reference. If I look at a car I will label and store features based on my knowledge of cars and my wife would store features based on her knowledge of cars. Neither of us might store the information visually and we will probably store totally different information. I would store mostly technical details and she would store mostly esthetic details. If we were to describw the car we saw the descriptions would be vastly different.

[pmbguy]

Forgive my omission.

The best way to remember anything is to make it a story.
The human-animal understands very well any story of resource. Make your plan cheese in a story, with 5 sub headings.
In the story, walk around and look at your A4’S in your office and your mind.
KISS Keep It simple Stupid