Summary of Chapter 23:

- New studies show on unconscious mental processing shows that people receive 40 billion sensory inputs every second, and only are aware of 40 at one given time consciously.

- Conscious awareness of 40 things is different than consciously processing 40 bits of information.

- Takes up lots of mental resources to be able to think about, remember, process, represent, and encode information.

- You’re more likely to remember what was seen and heard at the end of the conversation which is called recency effort.

- Suffix effect, for example, if you pick up your phone to text someone during a presentation your more likely to remember the beginning of the presentation than the end of it.

- You can store concrete words, for example, table and chair in long-term memory more easily than abstract works like justice and democracy.

- You can remember things that you see better that words.

- 1991 Neuroscientist Matthew Wilson discovered that the brain activity of rats when they ran in the maze and when they sleep are the same.

- Daoyun Ji and Wilson (2007) found out that not only in rats, but when people sleep and dream, their minds are reworking, or consolidating, their experiences from the day. The new memories are making new associations from the information gathered in the day.

- The brain when sleeping decides what to remember and what to forget.

- Phonological coding can help to remember information in written language stories were memorized and retold in rhyming verse, for example, “Thirty days hath September, April, June, and November” which the rhythm can help in remembering the next verse.

Next up

Previous

22. It’s easier to recognize information than recall it