[HN Gopher] The Overflowing Brain: Information overload and the ...
___________________________________________________________________
The Overflowing Brain: Information overload and the limits of
working memory
Author : yamrzou
Score : 99 points
Date : 2023-07-05 18:40 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com)
| anthk wrote:
| As a Spaniard when I read "tertulia" I associate it with radio/tv
| talk shows with 5% of content and 95% of blabbery and filler.
|
| Oh, and talkers interrupting each other, everytime.
|
| Then, I head do the teletext service (which is "alive",
| amazingly) and I have the same content in four or five lines.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teletext
|
| What we need it's some service over web/gemini/gopher which news
| resumed down to the core. Yes, http://text.npr.org it's good for
| Americans, and http://lite.cnn.io used to work. But, instead of
| an endless wall, something composed of two or three paragraphs.
| babyshake wrote:
| It will be very interesting to see the intersections between
| cognitive neuroscience and notions of "working memory" and
| context windows in AI.
| Fr0styMatt88 wrote:
| The way I've come around to digital tools is that I consider them
| a different, externalised type of memory augmentation. They give
| us another type of memory.
|
| If someone interrupts me and asks me to do something that I can't
| attend to right then, there's two options (assuming I want to do
| the thing):
|
| - Hold it in my working memory until I'm able to fully context
| switch or put mental effort into transferring it into long-term
| memory
|
| - Immediately note it down, then make no further effort to
| remember it
|
| The same applies for random ideas that might pop into my head
| that are unrelated to the task at hand.
| talldatethrow wrote:
| People decide what they want to memorize. If people want to spend
| memory on goofy things, that's up then I guess.
|
| I barely know the streets I take to my office, 6 months in (and
| I'm not just talking about their actual names). I use nav every
| time. My father thought I was losing my mind.
|
| But at the same time I can remember basically every small block
| of code in a large saas I single handedly built a few years ago,
| even today.
| coldtea wrote:
| > _People decide what they want to memorize._
|
| Not exactly the case when you have ADHD.
| bmoxb wrote:
| I wouldn't say it's true in general. You can certainly choose
| what to put active effort into learning/revising, but
| memorisation isn't really something we have direct, conscious
| control over.
| dktnj wrote:
| _> But at the same time I can remember basically every small
| block of code in a large saas I single handedly built a few
| years ago, even today._
|
| Trying to replace that with something useful here at the
| moment. Much more difficult than it looks.
| throw1234651234 wrote:
| I got bored halfway through the article. Very unfocused and there
| seems to be no point to it. Here is what you need to know -
| working memory is the ability to hold things in short term
| memory. Most people can hold 7 distinct pieces. What's important
| is that these pieces are not scalar, these can be "reference
| types". For example 3.14 would be 1 piece of information called
| "Pi" and other defined concepts are just "1 piece".
|
| Also, not all pieces are the same - 7 numbers are easier to
| memorize than 7 colors for most people for example.
|
| Working memory is the fluid intelligence part intelligence
| covered on IQ test, which covers 2 parts: fluid
| intelligence(working memory) and crystallized intelligence (stuff
| you memorized). Unlike what the article states, no one has found
| a proven way to improve working memory in a general sense in
| adulthood. This would be the panacea if someone did.
|
| edit: I did get through the end of the article after all and at
| the end of the day it really does say nothing at all. The author
| just tried to tie a bunch of old concepts together.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| > no one has found a proven way to improve working memory in a
| general sense in adulthood
|
| I was under the impression that dual n-back training was a way
| to achieve this, although https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N-back
| describes it as somewhere between unproven and small impact.
| It's a pity that it hasn't been studied more extensively; as
| you note, if we had a reliable way of increasing general
| working memory it would have a significant impact.
| toast0 wrote:
| This sounds a lot like doing LZ77 compression in your head.
| :P
|
| Re the earlier parent's:
|
| > Also, not all pieces are the same - 7 numbers are easier to
| memorize than 7 colors for most people for example.
|
| That's because you can turn a sequence of numbers into a
| sequence of compound numbers. In NANPA, the phone company has
| taught many of us to turn a 10 digit number into an four
| parts: the three digit area code, the three digit exchange
| prefix, and two two-digit halves of the subscriber number.
|
| Ex: Jenny's phone number, +12128675309, becomes area code 212
| (New York), exchange eight-six-seven (UNion 7?), five-three,
| oh-nine. Sometimes, as in the case of Jenny, it makes more
| sense rhythmically to read out the individual components of
| the last four digits without grouping them.
| throw1234651234 wrote:
| There is a well-research article on it here:
| https://gwern.net/dnb-faq
|
| There is a good desktop trainer (/game) here:
| https://brainworkshop.sourceforge.net/
|
| In short, my understanding is that we can't improve it, but
| that could be very much due to the lack of actual dedicated
| research. If we could, it would essentially be a super power.
|
| There are people who can't memorize their authenticator codes
| in one piece, let alone focus when someone is describing a
| method signature at work. This would be a big quality-of-life
| change for those people. This also ties in with following
| conversations and tying words together well, which most
| people don't think about.
| mark_l_watson wrote:
| Is this really a problem?
|
| When I code, I always work on one thing for 60 - 90 minutes,
| nothing else so all working memory is dedicated to task at hand.
|
| When I read (fiction or technical) or watch a lecture on YouTube,
| this is usually a dedicated 15 - 60 minute session. Once again,
| all working memory is dedicated to task at hand.
|
| Working memory might be a problem for people who multitask, but I
| don't like to do that.
| throw1234651234 wrote:
| You need to understand the scope of what you are working on.
| For example, right now I am "just" getting another field from
| an entity in a 3rd party API. That field is a reference.
|
| Immediately I have questions like: 1. Do I get this in one call
| or several? If former, will this cause issues with the cache?
| If latter, will it decrease performance? 2. At what level do I
| want to do the filtering, at the query or higher level? 3. How
| will this affect existing calls, etc?
|
| Breaking this down into questions is called "chunking" -
| grouping multi-parameter unknowns until they are simple. The
| problem is that if you can only keep 5 things in mind, you may
| outright miss questions to ask, or, at the very least, you will
| spend more time on a task than a person with a higher WM.
| cborenstein wrote:
| I find this part super interesting:
|
| > He describes studies that have found a substantial delay in the
| reaction time of people talking on their cell phone while driving
| --- or even just holding conversations with someone in the car
| while driving. A similar delay has not been found in these
| studies when the driver is doing more passive activities such as
| listening to the radio or an audio book; it is the need to focus
| on a conversation that limits the working memory's ability to
| effectively support driving at the same time.
|
| When your mind is holding items in working memory, that means
| that it has less space to focus and execute effectively on the
| main task at hand.
|
| Just writing things down gives some resolution of that
| task/thought so that we can fully show up for our main thing.
|
| Working on a new notepad for jotting things down to free up
| working memory. The goal is to make it easy to capture things and
| add some organization when you want.
|
| Curious to get feedback. https://www.stashpad.com/blog/working-
| memory
| JohnFen wrote:
| This might also explain why simply having a passenger in your
| car with you will impair your driving. You're probably paying
| some amount of attention to the passenger.
| 8n4vidtmkvmk wrote:
| I tell my wife to shush when I'm approaching a difficult
| intersection. She gets it.
| JohnFen wrote:
| My code phrase is "just a minute" -- a phrase I developed a
| habit for when people want to interrupt me at work when I'm
| not in a place where I can safely pause.
| chrisco255 wrote:
| If it's an adult passenger though, they will often help you
| watch the road.
| JohnFen wrote:
| You have a better class of passengers than I! I've never
| had one that was helpful in such a way (although I've had a
| few that _thought_ they were.)
| version_five wrote:
| I'm a person who thinks very deeply about stuff and that often
| includes latching on to something that was either said or I
| thought of during a conversation and then zoning out and
| thinking about that (just for context).
|
| When I was younger I was single and almost never had passengers
| in my car. I rarely talked on my phone (before we were forced
| to be hands free) but occasionally I would and I'd say overall
| did not find having it in my hand a particular distraction
| (honestly what would that have to do with anything).
|
| Anyway, I remember when "bans" came into effect and put my
| phone on bluetooth. I was talking to my mom on the speakerphone
| in the car, and suddenly realized I'd gone through a red light,
| and realized I'd better hang up and drive.
|
| Tldr, for me anyway it's being on the phone that's distracting
| because it, as mentioned above, gets me thinking about other
| stuff, and I actually find talking to the air more confusing
| than either phone to ear or a person in the car. Though I
| routinely tell my wife to stop talking when I'm driving in
| traffic (I don't mean this as a joke) because I find it too
| distracting to be involved in conversation when I need to think
| about driving. Obviously I'm a shitty multitasker but I suspect
| this is true to some extent for most people.
| ChrisClark wrote:
| As a personal anecdote, a long time ago I tried learning
| Chinese from a CD on my commute. I gave up after a couple of
| days because I realized it was affecting my driving. I needed a
| lot of concentration to practice the language and found I was
| making driving mistakes.
| wcrichton wrote:
| For the curious, I have done some experiments on working memory
| and programming: https://arxiv.org/abs/2101.06305
|
| > Program tracing, or mentally simulating a program on concrete
| inputs, is an important part of general program comprehension.
| Programs involve many kinds of virtual state that must be held in
| memory, such as variable/value pairs and a call stack. In this
| work, we examine the influence of short-term working memory (WM)
| on a person's ability to remember program state during tracing.
| [...]
| pimpampum wrote:
| I wonder if over-reliance on digital tools prevents us from being
| challenged enough to maintain an optimal working memory.
| gopalv wrote:
| > prevents us from being challenged enough
|
| Digital tools mostly seem help me with long-term memory and
| doesn't do a thing for the working memory exercise.
|
| I can look up a phone number or have a calendar on what I'm
| doing next Wednesday, but the working memory of "what am I
| doing right now" hasn't gone digital yet. Navigation has
| vaguely the same, because it's more long form memory rather
| than the hot list in my brain (maybe "what gear am I in?" on a
| manual car? doubtful).
|
| Of all the day to day activities I do, cooking is one of those
| things where I've really felt like my working memory is working
| hard & despite quite a few tools like timers or automatic
| cookers, the way the kitchen is organized with closed drawers
| is a most-recent working memory exercise like those face-down
| card games.
| Topfi wrote:
| I really believe it depends on the tool and use case. A
| Zettelkasten (digital or physical) does create some reliance,
| yes, but considering the improved output commonly associated,
| I'd be very surprised if a Zettelkasten tool prevented a user
| from sufficiently challenging their working memory.
|
| There have been, admittedly, no studies on specific digital
| tools and their impact on the working memory, though at the
| same time, even the benefit of actively training working memory
| is inconclusive at best[0].
|
| In general, I am doubtful over any statement that general use
| of modern technology could lead to a short-term memory
| impairement.
|
| [0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4968033/
| emoII wrote:
| Another perspective is that putting our knowledge in the world
| by using digital tools is the only way we can function while
| being bombarded by information and distractions
| PartiallyTyped wrote:
| And it is possibly the only truly safe way to ensure
| knowledge propagation.
| passion__desire wrote:
| Internalise external information > solve problems in your
| head by moving pieces around > externalize solutions
| intelVISA wrote:
| Transfer solutions to product > burn VC money > retire
| falcolas wrote:
| A human's working memory has never been that big. 5-7 items at
| a time. Less for those who are also dealing with other mental
| issues.
| pengaru wrote:
| Which is kind of bonkers when you think about how much
| complexity there is in the gray matter upstairs, so many
| neurons, yet just 5-7 items in the cache at a time.
|
| Jim Keller raised this point in one of his Lex Fridman
| interviews. They're some of the more worthwhile ones to
| listen to IMO.
| MengerSponge wrote:
| And so it is that you by reason of your tender regard for the
| writing that is your offspring have declared the very opposite
| of its true effect. If men learn this, it will implant
| forgetfulness in their souls. They will cease to exercise
| memory because they rely on that which is written, calling
| things to remembrance no longer from within themselves, but by
| means of external marks.
|
| Plato (400 BC)
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Funny, given that we _read_ Plato.
| api wrote:
| Seems more likely that the Internet is flooding us and
| overwhelming our working memory.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2023-07-05 23:00 UTC)