nostalgia, con't con't.

Okay, so let's discuss short term memory!
We usually hear many people talk about "short term memory loss". They say, "Oh, dear, my memory's horrible. I have short term memory loss."

Short term memory allows us to remember ideas, or thoughts, for several seconds without intentional rehearsing. When at Bell Laboratories, George Miller conducted experiments, explaining that short term memory can only store 7±2 items. Did you know that humans can only remember on demand: seven digits, six letters and five words after a presentation?
Mr. Miller's belief is that the working memory can only hold 2 seconds of sound, while the memory span of youth is seven items.

However, it is believed, now, that short term memory actually holds an even lower amount of items--from 4 to 5.
It is easier, however, to increase the amount of things someone can remember, by chunking. Now, what is chunking? Chunking is when one groups individual items of information together. For example, a phone number is expected to be remembered, one usually chunks the area code, then groups the first three numbers, then the last four, or they group the number into two pieces.

Short term memory is usually dependent on what is heard, rather than what is seen. It was found that subjects found remembering letters that sounded the same, quite hard to differentiate. This suggests that the letters were first memorized through hearing rather than visualizing. However, this generalization/assumption cannot be proven.

So there you go.
A quick run-over of the Short Term Memory!

copyright

Oh, by the way, everything written is in my own words. I take credit for them.

All the pictures are not mine, I just don't know how to credit them, as I found them on Tumblr. I take no credit for the pictures unless stated.

con't.

So this is a continuation of last time's post on memories and nostalgia.
Anyway, so I'll just quickly inform you on the use and workings of our brain in order to help us process memory.
These are the three types of memory: long-term, short-term, and sensory.
Sensory memory is memorization. It is perceiving something through one of your five senses. When one is trying to memorize something that is visual, or uses taste, etc., usually the FULL memory only lasts for 200-500 milliseconds. Sensory memory was first experimented on by George Sperling, who used the "partial report paradigm", where the experimentees were given a grid of three rows of four letters. With this experiment, Sperling showed that immediate sensory memory was all 12 items, but within a couple hundred milliseconds, the memory faded away. This is possibly why when I look at a rose, when I see dust motes, I try to commit them to memory, but I cannot because it grows fainter so easy.

This shall be continued next time! :)
Thanks for reading, lovelies.

Nostalgia

At times, when I get a whiff of something, hear something familiar, taste something I remember from a certain experience, I get pulled back to the past.
Let me tell you an example.
I was just settling into bed one day, when across the hall, my mom entered the washroom. She flicked on the light/ceiling fan first, though, and I watched the light spill across the hallway.
That, for some strange reason, made me think of my hometown.
Now, this is public, and therefore I won't mention where I was born, but something just struck me then and there. It made me wish I was back in the midst of that particular big city, listening to cars and trucks rumble by as I sat on my grandfather's window seat. It made me wish that I was complaining about hot weather and dirty washrooms. It made me wish that I was up on the 27th floor of my aunt's apartment building, bathing in air conditioned air and looking down at the world below, where I couldn't hear anything because the windows were never open.
And so this is my nostalgia post.
I know every experience I get, I try to savor fully. I even try to commit it to memory. But our brains are warped and every time I try to bring up a memory, it's fuzzy. There are things that may have happened, that I forget and guess about. Maybe this happened, maybe this did. What I do know, however, are the answers I studied for my test. My test answers are quite important, because they give me that mark that I covet, but I want to remember how happy I felt at a certain occasion, the inside jokes given, the laughter I shook with.
Why is this?
This shall be continued next time.

tu es ma raison d'etre, darling.

Well, it's so simple.

Find something you love. Your passion. Your raison d'etre.
Work at the instrument until you have calluses. 'Til it hurts to play the notes because you are pressing on the areas where your fingers have bruised. 'Til your mouth is swollen and your lungs are crying for a rest.
Sketch until you have charcoal running up and down your arms. 'Til you are coughing on the smoke it releases.
Read and re-read the lines until you cannot sleep without your voice reverberating in your mind. Until you start quoting the script. Until someone asks you a question and you end up answering with a part of the dialogue.
Concentrate on a story until you realize, several hours, days later, that you haven't slept in a long time. Write 'til you get tired and sick of the story. 'Til you're purposely making the lead character die so that you'll finally be done with it.
Dance until you have cuts forming along the edges of your feet. Twirl until you're ready to throw up everything. Until you're ready to give up.
Play something that pushes your physical limits to the point where you are ready to collapse. That forces you to work with your team and build a strong defense. Until your shins are cold and muddy with sweat and your dirty tears.
And there you go.

What happiness.

i wonder what it'd be like.
to feel weightless for a couple seconds,
to be suspended, flying. free.
to glance at birds chirping past like, "hey, what is this big kid doing up here?"

to look out and have the time stopped for a moment for you to take in all the beauty around you. to feel the wind caressing your face.
to feel like you have every single freaking thing in the world by your fingertips,
as if all your problems are diminished and minimized--not by someone else, but by you, you who have suffered through more than you can bear.
to feel as though every thought, every action you ever did, wrong or right, is deemed little, deemed small, deemed insignificant, because you're on top of the world.
or would you feel the pull of gravity? would you feel it tugging on you, like a
dark poison, dragging you down to earth?
would the wind feel like a blanket pressed upon your face? would the sky feel gray and
blank? because up there you are so close, so close.
you can touch these strands of sky that are coming loose. and once you
pull, they furl around your neck and pull tighter. cut off your circulation.
squeeze your airway.
the seams of the clouds are ripping loose. the cumulus clouds they wrap around your head and suffocate you with mounds of cotton.

so tell me, young person, are you willing to risk it?
are you willing to have your air stolen from your lungs as you fly?
are you prepared for the sky to go colourless?
are you ready to get let down?
yes? well, then perfect, child.
you are well-prepared for the world.