In a message dated 3/13/12 3:32:34 PM, [email protected] writes:
> I think that verbal cognition and memory is in some ways antithetical to > imagistic or pictorial cognition and memory. > > I don't know if they're antithetical -- there may be some bright folk who have both -- but I know that when I was in college I was struck by how much stronger my aural memory was than my visual. Remember those laminated "data sheets" for math, biology, languages, etc? Back then Caedmon Records -- talking records -- concentrated on poetry and stuff. I figured if they made "data records" for louts like me they'd get rich. (I pictured myself listening to them while shaving, a stupid picture because I shave in about four minutes) The memory distinction between recollection and recognition is pertinent here. I've found it's difficult for guys like you with visual memories to grasp how handicapped we other guys are. I was once editing a panoramic saga set in India in the early 1800s. I said to the author (M.M. Kaye; The book was THE FAR PAVILIONS) "Moll, that description of the cavalry charge up the hill at Jalalabed was great!" She said, "Oh, that was hard. I had to run that film again and again." I, the nervous publisher, said, "Er, what's that, Moll?" She said, "Yes. I realized at one point I didn't know where Wally was." Then she shut her eyes, and continued. "So I got them all back down to the bottom and charged them up again, and there he was in the upper right hand corner." I said, "Moll, do you have any idea how different your head is from mine? When I shut my eyes, I see what you see with your eyes wide open in a totally dark room." She reached over and took my hand. "No!" she said with such sympathy it was as though I'd just said I had the big C. My son knew at 13 he wanted to direct movies. Whe he was fifteen or so I told him the Moll story, and I asked him, "When you shut your eyes, do you see things with a cinematic clarity?" He looked back at me with an utterly convincing honesty, and said, "I don't have to shut my eyes." (He is, today, a Hollywood movie director) He inherited from his mother, who was at one point an interior designer. She and I were once standing in very large, empty factory room. Her job was to turn the room into open-design office spaces. She just stared for two minutes or so,and then turned us to go. "What'd you just do?" I asked. She said, "The room's ceiling is much too high for offices. So I was picturing how it would look if we painted the ceiling blue or black and the walls the same color for about seven feet down from the ceiling. And I imagined Roman portal windows down at the far end. And..." I decided I was right not to go into interior design.
