I want to toss out an idea that I have been thinking of for some time but haven't formulated a clear analysis or hypothesis about.
I remember words differently from shapes. That seems obvious, at first glance, but bear with me: I cannot easily remember a sequence of numbers, such as a telephone number, as a series of 9, 1, 9, 9, 2, 3, etc. However, I can remember the it when I remember it as an image. My brother's in the hospital; I called and found out his room telephone number, wrote it down at home, and then while I was out, I called him. I tried to remember the number as digits, but I couldn't. However, when I tried to remember what it looked like on the paper, I could do so. (Also, I remember some numbers by the pattern I make when I type them on the keypad. In fact, when I got a new ATM card, I chose a number based on the pattern I made with it. Now, all I do to remember the number is remember the pattern--and make sure the 1 is at the upper left, not lower left!) People who study typography and written communication have noted that words written in lowercase letters have a characteristic shape, called a bouma, consisting of a boundary around the letters, sort of like the notches on a key. bouma = ._ | |______. |________| Words written in all caps are harder to recognize by their bouma, becaue they are all uniformly rectangles. BOUMA .___________. |___________| I think that verbal cognition and memory is in some ways antithetical to imagistic or pictorial cognition and memory. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Michael Brady
