Welcome to Understanding Memory. Someone once said that memory is fascinating because sometimes we forget what we want to remember, sometimes we remember what we want to forget, and sometimes we remember events that never happened or never happened the way we remember them. I want to show you how memory works, why it sometimes fails, and what we can do to enhance it. Based on my recent book – Memory and Movies: What Films Can Teach Us About Memory (MIT Press, 2015) – I will provide an introduction to the scientific study of human memory by focusing on a select group of topics that hold widespread appeal. To facilitate your understanding, I will use clips from numerous films to illustrate different aspects of memory – describing what has been learned about memory in a nontechnical way for people with no prior background in psychology. Many of us love watching movies because they offer an unparalleled opportunity for entertainment, even if entertaining films are not always scientifically accurate. Still, I believe that we can learn a lot about memory from popular films, if we watch them with an educated eye. Welcome once more. I am looking forward to showing you what movies can teach us about memory. John Seamon Professor of Psychology Emeritus Wesleyan University
Lecture 10: Memory Champs, Mnemonics, and Savants - Movie: Rain Man
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来自 卫斯连大学 的课程
Understanding Memory: Explaining the Psychology of Memory through Movies
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从本节课中
Making Long Lasting Memories
Memory’s main purpose is to facilitate future thinking. But to plan successful future actions, effective strategies for learning and retention are needed. Some strategies are highly effective for producing long lasting memories, others are not.
与讲师见面
John SeamonProfessor Emeritus
Psychology
[BLANK AUDIO]
[MUSIC]
People are fascinated by others with a superior memory ability.
These individuals called memorists,
seem to be able to remember large amounts of information quickly and effortlessly.
Yet, their superior memory is not based on exceptional intelligence.
Exceptional memorizers, says psychologist Anders Ericsson, are made, not born.
These individuals from countries all over the world often compete
in memory championships,
trying to remember as much information as possible in a limited period of time.
For these highly trained contestants, remembering poses little problem.
Contestants in the annual world competition, for example,
have to memorize numerous items, including long lists of spoken numbers,
a shuffled deck of playing cards and names for many faces in short segments of time.
How do people get to be so
good at memorization that they can remember quickly and accurately?
Can you remember the order of a shuffled deck of playing cards after
a single exposure?
Let's try it.
Can you remember all those cards?
What about the mathematical constant pi?
How many digits of pi can you recall in perfect order?
The world record for memorizing pi was established in 2005 when Chao Lu,
a young man from China, recalled 67,890 digits of pi before making an error.
He achieved this goal after studying pi for
about a year using a variation of an ancient mnemonic technique.
Chung Li memorized pi by turning groups of digits into words, and
those words into an imaginative story that he later recalled.
Few of us have thousands of hours to memorize pi,
but in a matter of a few minutes, I can show you the power of a mnemonic.
For this demonstration you must study this rhyme scheme
until you can recite the words perfectly without looking.
The rhymes are easy to learn and
they will make your later learning surprisingly easy.
If you wish, you can pause this lesson until you can recite them by heart from
one to ten before continuing.
Now that you've memorized the rhymes,
we're going to use them to remember a ten word list.
Before we begin, please listen carefully.
I'm going to show you ten words, one at a time on the screen.
When you see the first word, think back to the first rhyme that you learned,
one is a bun.
With the first rhyme and the first word,
make a mental picture connecting the rhyme and the word. Here's your first word.
For one is a bun and ghost, you might imagine a ghost biting a large bun.
Create any image you wish, but just make sure that you see the ghost and
the bun touching each other in your image.
Form new images for each of the ten rhymes and words as they appear on the screen.
If you follow these instructions, the results will surprise you.
Begin now with one is a bun and the word ghost,
a new word will appear every eight seconds
[MUSIC]
We're now done with the learning task.
Don't worry about remembering the words.
I'll come back to them in a bit.
The rhyme scheme that I asked you to learn is called, the pegword mnemonic.
It's a variation of the method of loci,
the method of locations,
an ancient mnemonic device dating back over 2,000 years to classical Greece.
A person using the method of loci will typically
use a set of familiar locations, such as the rooms in their home or
the buildings along a familiar route in their town.
To remember a long list of items, you would mentally walk through your town,
visualizing the buildings along the way
and imagining each item that you wish to remember
connected to a different building on your walk.
Remembering later is easy.
You take a mental walk back through your town,
picking up each item that you left in each building.
This mnemonic works because it provides a plan for remembering.
It tells you where to begin, how to proceed and when you're done.
Now, let's see how well you remember the list of ten words.
Beginning with one is a bun, go down the list on the screen.
Recall all ten words in order by reading each rhyme,
remembering your mental image, and saying the word.
Remembering all ten words should be surprisingly easy.
[MUSIC]
Constructing mental pictures of things to remember and
organizing them into an imaginary story was essentially Chao Lu's procedure for
memorizing thousands of digits of pi.
But he spent months honing his mnemonic technique,
combining elaborative thinking with a plan for
remembering, just as you did on a much smaller scale with the rhyming mnemonic.
Are mnemonics useful in everyday life?
Recalling thousands of digits of pi or the order of a shuffled deck of
cards is certainly impressive but these acts require a considerable
investment in time and they have limited everyday value.
Still, with enough practice and
time, many of you taking this course could perform similar memory feats.
Yet, some exceptional memory performances are really hard to explain.
Some people show extraordinary memory ability without using mnemonics.
These rare, puzzling individuals are thought to number less than 100 in
the world at any one time, are called savants, from the French word for knowing.
Viewing their mind boggling memory feats on YouTube will
leave you stunned and amazed.
Their memory feats do not seem humanly possible.
For example, in one week,
Daniel Tammet learned the Icelandic language from scratch.
Mentally disabled Derek Paravicini has a repertoire of thousands
of songs that he plays flawlessly from memory on the piano.
And mentally impaired Stephen Wiltshire draws detailed accurate maps of Rome and
Tokyo after a single helicopter ride over each city.
These mysterious individuals are capable of brilliance in art,
music, or math due to their prodigious memory.
Barry Levinson's film, Rain Man, featuring Dustin Hoffman and
Tom Cruise was inspired by the late, real life savant, Kim Peek.
Rain Man shows the costs and benefits of having a memory that psychologist
Darold Treffert describes as deep but exceedingly narrow.
[MUSIC]
Rain Man is a heart-rending story about two brothers who separated during early
childhood, discover each other during adulthood.
Raymond Babbitt, a mentally disabled autistic savant who lives each day by
routine, was institutionalized after his mother's death.
His brother Charlie,
a callous fast talking car salesman grew up unaware of Raymond's existence.
After his estranged father’s death, Charlie flies home for a reading of the will and
learns that he has inherited his fathers 1949 Buick convertible.
But the money from the estate, some $3 million,
is going to Doctor Bruner, a trustee who is charged with caring for Raymond.
Discovering that he has a brother, and feeling cheated over the will,
Charlie packs Raymond in the Buick and sets off for Los Angeles,
planning to rest half of his father's estate from Bruner.
What follows is a road film in which Charlie learns the meaning of
compassion by taking the road less traveled.
[NOISE] >> Raymond, Raymond!
You never, never touch a steering wheel when I'm driving!
Do you hear me?
>> Yeah.
>> Do you hear me?
>> Of course I don't have my underwear.
>> What? >> I'm definitely not wearing my
underwear.
>> What are talking about?
I gave you a fresh pair of mine this morning.
>> No, not my underwear.
>> Self-centered Charlie has no idea that Raymond has non-negotiable needs of
his own.
Citing the accident record of airlines,
Raymond will not fly in a plane, causing Charlie to drive across country.
Nor does he like highways, causing Charlie to take the back roads.
Even a pair of underwear generates chaos when Raymond informs Charlie
that he only wears K-mart boxer shorts.
Charlie failing to understand exclaims, what's the difference?
Underwear is underwear!
For Raymond, changes are confusing and frightening.
Safety is found in routines.
For him, lunch must be at 12:30.
He must watch People's Court and Wheel of Fortune each day on TV.
His bed must be by a window.
He must eat pancakes for breakfast with a toothpick, and
lights must be turned off at 11 PM.
>> You don't have to go to Cincinnati to get a pair of underwear at K-mart.
>> You have to go to K-mart 400 Oak Street.
>> What'd I tell you Ray?
We are not going to Cincinnati and that's final.
>> I get my boxer shorts at K-mart.
>> Raymond that is final, did you hear me?
>> I just want to be short [INAUDIBLE].
[NOISE]
>> [INAUDIBLE] What difference does
it make where you buy underwear?
What difference does it make?
Underwear is underwear, and it's underwear wherever you buy it!
In Cincinnati or wherever!
>> K-mart.
>> Good morning, coffee?
>> Yes, that would be good.
>> Sally Dibbs, Dibbs Sally.
461-0192.
>> How did you know my phone number?
>> How did you know that?
>> You said read the telephone book last night.
Dibbs Sally 461-0192 >> He remembers things,
little things sometimes.
>> Very clever, boys.
I'll be right back.
>> Yet, Raymond possesses mystifying memory and math skills.
During their cross country odyssey, he memorizes names and
phone numbers in a telephone directory.
Accurately counts the 246 toothpicks dropped on the floor.
Solves complex math problems,
such as finding the square root of 2,130 in his head.
And counts cards in Las Vegas to win at blackjack from six decks of cards.
Asked by Charlie how he does this, Raymond says that he just sees the answers,
yet simple subtraction is beyond his grasp.
>> Ray, do you know how much the square root of 2,130 is?
>> 46.15192304.
2304.
>> That's amazing.
I mean that is amazing.
He should work for NASA or something like that.
>> If you had $1 and you spent $0.50, how much money would you have left?
>> About 70.
>> $0.70?
>> $0.70.
>> This whizz at mental calculation is paradoxically mentally impaired.
A turning point in the film occurs one evening when Raymond,
while brushing his teeth, repeats a conversation he had long ago with Charlie.
>> Why'd you say funny teeth?
>> You said funny teeth, funny Rain Man >> Rain Man?
>> Yeah.
>> I said, Rain Man?
>> Yeah, funny Rain Man.
>> Was I trying to say Raymond, and it came out Rain Man?
>> Yeah, funny Rain Man.
>> You?
You're the Rain Man?
>> Growing up believing that the Rain Man was an imaginary childhood friend,
Charlie finally sees Raymond as family,
the older brother who sang him Beatles songs and
accepts that he is better off with Bruner.
>> Who took this picture?
>> D-a-d.
>> And you lived with us?
>> Yeah, 10961 Beachcrest Street, Cincinnati, Ohio.
>> When did you leave?
>> January 21st, 1965.
>> You remember that?
>> It's Thursday.
Very snowy out, 7.2 inches of snow that day.
>> All aboard!
>> Declining an offer of money, Charlie brings Raymond to the train station.
Preoccupied with his portable TV, Raymond nods.
>> I'm coming to see you in two weeks.
How many days is that before we're going to be together?
>> 14 days from today.
Today's Wednesday.
>> In hours?
>> 336 hours.
>> Mystifying.
>> Of course that's 20,160 minutes, 1,209,600 seconds.
>> Ray!
Ray!
Ray!
>> The brother who was incapable of change
has definitely taught Charlie a lesson in compassion.
>> I'll see you soon.
>> Yeah, one for bad, two for good.
[MUSIC]
>> Raymond's prodigious memory dazzles us in Rain Man,
while also revealing how futile life would be if we were unable to
use this profound ability for future thinking.
Raymond is a marvel at memorization.
But, he is unable to put it to any practical use.
His memory feats are mystifying.
But any one of us with a laptop has access to more information
than Raymond could acquire in a lifetime.
Today, smart technology is changing how we use memory.
Memorization is less important, while knowing how to access and
evaluate information is increasingly essential.
The latest news, weather forecast or film review is only a few clicks away.
However, smart technology will not make memory obsolete.
As a source of readily available information,
the Internet can make our memory more powerful, helping us with future thinking.
[MUSIC]
