FWIW, I just did it with my 13 year old grand daughter.  I did not tell her 
what I was going to ask her in five minutes, and when I called back to get her 
to recall, I asked her all sorts of distracting questions about what she had 
been doing in the meantime, before I asked for the list of words.  Anyway, she 
reeled them off effortlessly.  Debriefed, she confessed to having done some 
rehearsal.  

 

Without memnonics, I can’t do it at all. 

 

Nick 

 

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

 <mailto:[email protected]> [email protected]

 <https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/> 
https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

 

 

From: Friam <[email protected]> On Behalf Of David Eric Smith
Sent: Tuesday, July 21, 2020 3:12 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Can you do this? HTML required.

 

Cody’s observation gives a nice branch to Alexander Luria’s The Mind of a 
Mnemonist.

 

Patient S (I think real name Shevashensky) was a perfect-memory person (I 
forget autistic or not, but yes synaesthesic), whose life was not very 
functional but who made a living to some degree as a memory performer.

 

For a long time he did the things people could respond to, which were the 
semantically ordinary things: sentences or events etc.  Those are the things 
people find interesting, and it took the world a while to get bored seeing 
someone do reliably what they could not at all.

 

Only relatively late in his career did the performances become more 
technocratic, in the sense of wondering how much one could change the objects 
remembered and still preserve the effect.  So he would start to perform 
repeating long lists of randomly generated meaningless syllables.  Ta dee dah 
do si etc.

 

In order to do this he would invent these incredibly rich semantic narratives 
in the memorization phase, to wrap around each syllable.  Makes me think of 
Peter Gacs’s automaton that has lots of scaffolding to carry a small number of 
cells in which you can store arbitrary bits.  Synaesthesia was really central 
to making that construction capable of carrying the long lists.

 

Anyway, he could do it, but one gets the impression reading Luria that there 
was this enormous cognitive engine, running at higher and higher over-clocking, 
to produce ever more empty, slowly delivered, strings of syllables.  

 

I believe Daniel Tammet describes reciting digits of pi in their color, shape, 
and size packages, but I don’t think I recall hearing him say there are 
narratives of the same kind Shevashensky constructed.

 

Eric

 

 





On Jul 22, 2020, at 4:53 AM, cody dooderson <[email protected] 
<mailto:[email protected]> > wrote:

 

After reading Glen's reply I came up with a mnemonic, "Fart Vapor Can Distract 
Republicans" 

Of course, now I can not remember now what the F stands for. Maybe "Fart Velvet 
Church Daisy Red"

 

Cody Smith

 

On Tue, Jul 21, 2020 at 1:15 PM <[email protected] 
<mailto:[email protected]> > wrote:

Thanks.  Anybody else?  I need more data.

 

N

 

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

 <mailto:[email protected]> [email protected]

 
<https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fwordpress.clarku.edu%2fnthompson%2f&c=E,1,ik9N3_zbccJR5xYQ-kGUvf3aJItzB9wPRxN8QIR59wit0_3W4cel_WgqYV6Mgd9tSG0Q7QVjD9_yDr0SOB3CH2CNwp6P7brIP5Kh9Bp5pDq9_fc9z-Y-OM6t&typo=1>
 https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

 

 

From: Friam <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Frank Wimberly
Sent: Tuesday, July 21, 2020 1:09 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[email protected] 
<mailto:[email protected]> >
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Can you do this? HTML required.

 

Are you asking me?  Face, red, church, velvet. ???

---
Frank C. Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz, 
Santa Fe, NM 87505

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

 

On Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 12:45 PM <[email protected] 
<mailto:[email protected]> > wrote:

Can you do it now? 

 

 

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

 <mailto:[email protected]> [email protected]

 
<https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fwordpress.clarku.edu%2fnthompson%2f&c=E,1,0wk5SS-WL0FcSI4fYxHjTml6-Skwy4nVNO4__tbqkI0YVfyzf446CviBGA8iCX_MbOk1EsC3lcVZOJs-mYiPpCedkfARaNuQ6Y4tOUnKBg,,&typo=1>
 https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

 

 

From: Friam <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > On 
Behalf Of Frank Wimberly
Sent: Tuesday, July 21, 2020 12:42 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[email protected] 
<mailto:[email protected]> >
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Can you do this? HTML required.

 

I go five after making lunch.  But I said it subvocally many times before 
starting lunch preparation.  Does that count?

---
Frank C. Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz, 
Santa Fe, NM 87505

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

 

On Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 11:59 AM <[email protected] 
<mailto:[email protected]> > wrote:

 

So the idea is that you hear the list, then you repeat it, then you repeat it 
again.  

 

Then you do something entirely else for five minute.  Write an email on 
philosophy?  Do a page of your income tax form?  Make a telephone call?  After  
a few of these distractions, Now try to remember the number.  

 

Let me know what your experience was and then I will explain where this comes 
from, if you don’t already know.  If you DO already know, don’t give away the 
secret until others have had a crack at it. 

 

Nick 

 

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> 

https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/ 
<https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fwordpress.clarku.edu%2fnthompson%2f&c=E,1,p0D8nxUeHmISaJz52HFNzZEtwx-3rSK9ANQki7T-RvvRs1QJ4d6c3db4o6gr7dxnCn9tvP5OXcZCLAJrW2tLscHICTJIinfgvWcsqI6o0SNy1Zqp9YEjkw,,&typo=1>
 

 

 

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