Short Term Visual Memory & To Do LIsts

[Purple Brain]

A piece of recent research suggests that people who take photos of places, things, events etc. are less likely to remember them and the details than those who do not. The hypothesis being that they depend upon their photos to do the remembering for them so don’t even store the image in their short-term visual memory and thus it never makes into the long-term memory either.

I’ve held a similar view on jotting down notes and the use of aides memoires (don’t start me off on the plural of aide memoire) in that the action of assigning the task or note to paper or keyboard – it immediately frees the conscious mind from any responsibility for taking action – which suggests why To Do lists are so popular.

By not writing stuff down I have to ‘keep it in mind’ which is an irritation and effort which motivates me to do whatever it is that needs doing.

Perhaps I should apply the photo thing to screenshots of my trades so that I can forget them as quickly as possible.

 

[DionysusToast]

I find the opposite - writing down idea seems to 'cement' them in my head.

But perhaps because that is exactly what I think will happen.

 

[Purple Brain]

But perhaps because that is exactly what I think will happen.

Ah. Now that might be a more significant factor.

Be good if you could play with your mind like that and set yourself up to do whatever you wanted as if by magic using whatever triggers you choose to bring about the results you want, wouldn't it now.

 

[Shakone]

I think you're right PB. Before I had a mobile phone, I had all friends and family numbers stored in my brain. Now I don't even know my own number. I had an internal clock that was pretty accurate, and I would pay attention to street names and always seem to know the direction, whereas now I just have a clock on my mobile, and a google map, and so I walk around clueless, timeless, lost and a slave to a little black thing with a shiny screen.

There was a TED talk that said based on studies, if you say to someone else you will do something, then you are less likely to do it. The hypothesis was that there is a part of the brain that once you say it, believes it has already been accomplished, and so disregards it in the future.

I don't know if that applies to writing things down.

 

[YouAreNotFree]

^ http://www.ted.com/talks

People should check this site out, for anything and everything. Brilliant stuff.

One on memory-

http://www.ted.com/talks/joshua_foer_feats_of_memory_anyone_can_do.html

 

[Purple Brain]

I'm just about to post on my trading thread in relation to the content on this thread as it is definitely trading related whereas this was of a more general nature.