If I recall correctly, the experiment, which was done in the 1940s or 1950s and for which I sadly don't have a citation, was one of the endless series of attempts to 'prove' the superiority of whites that were so trendy back then. It involved taking random lists of numbers and asking folks of different races to memorize them.
The results seemed to fit with the racist orthodoxy of the time. Whites and Asians performed best, learning to memorize longer lists of numbers more successfully than, say, Africans.
But another researcher noticed something interesting: success at learning to memorize long lists of numbers varied not with the race of the person doing it so much as with the language of that person. In English, all of the numbers between one and ten are single syllables, except for "seven," which has two. In Japanese (I'm told), all of the numbers between one and ten have one-syllable names. In some other languages, some of the numbers between one and ten have multiple syllables.
People's performance on tests involving memorizing numbers varies not with the race of the person, but with the person's native language, and more specifically with the number of syllables for the various digits in that language. whose native languages were English or Japanese outperformed people whose native language contained many terms for digits that were two or three syllables long, regardless of their race.
When we memorize a list of numbers, it seems, we're not memorizing the shapes of the numbers or even a concept of what the numbers mean; we're memorizing words. We rehearse the list of numbers as though we were hearing it or speaking it. (This definitely seems to be what I do; if I'm trying to remember "813-555-7123," what I do is I say the numbers to myself: "eight one three five five five seven one two three.")
So that got me to thinking about whether or not what psychologists and cognitive scientists call the "short-term buffer," which is the place where we stick stuff we're trying to remember right now, has a limited capacity in terms of syllables as well as in terms of chunks. (The notion that we easily remember lists of seven plus or minus two numbers depends on how we chunk them; I remember "1966," the year I was born, as a single chunk, not as four digits.)
Anyway, while I was washing my hair, I started wondering if the same concept applies to things other than numbers, such as arbitrary lists of shapes. Imagine a list of shapes, laid out and named like so:
Some of these shapes have names that are one syllable long, some have two-syllable names, and some have three-syllable names. To front-load the experiment, the researcher could describe the shapes by name (to ensure that everyone was using the same names for the shapes), or could even give all the test subjects a copy of this chart.
Now, if there is a correlation between the number of elements that can be stored in short-term memory and recalled and the number of syllables that the words for those elements have, then I would expect that people would consistently do better when asked to memorize lists like dot-dot-square-grid-circle-dot-ellipse-s
So yeah, that's the kind of thing that runs through my head in the morning. Anyone want to fund me?
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The previous poster was correct about the syllables in Japanese numbers. Which I also know from martial arts. :)
I would think that things like the familiarity with the shapes and their names would also be factors here though. "Grid" is not usually a "shape" when we're learning our shapes, and I wouldn't use the term "ellipse", I think "oval". I would expect those items in a list to be harder for me to remember than the very first basic shapes we learn, like circle, square, and triangle, regardless of the number of syllables.
I'll consider funding you if you fund my studies of learning language. ;) I find that even more fascinating, always have... and now that I have a 13-month-old, even more so. (Her first word is officially "whee", she's my little adrenaline junkie...)
So for me, memorizing numbers isn't so much linked to language (I'm bilingual French (which has single syllable words for all numbers from 1-10) and English) as it is to shapes.
Edited at 2011-02-25 11:39 pm (UTC)
someone suggested to me that i get tested for that, because i have a fantastic memory for long strings of numbers and am good at certain types of math, yet am horrible at basic math, directions, etc... can't find a test place in seattle that isn't expensive though
I also have a form of number dyslexia, but in my case it simply means that I have trouble remembering the order of numbers I see written. It was pretty bad working as a cashier, when I was supposed to give back, say, 13.70 bucks and I gave back 17.30 bucks instead (turns out people only tend to call you back on it when it's not in their favour).
If I slow down and focus, I can remember it better. Saying the numbers out loud or in my head also prevents me from remembering them wrong afterwards, but I need extra focus or I just pronounce it wrong in the first place, and then remember it wrong as a result.
I had a harder time in history than in math, as it is (in my opinion) easier to check in math if you got the right number or not. Dates seem a bit more arbitrary to me unless you can look at a bunch of them, sort the order of the events and deduce the correct date for each, but that's very time consuming.
I have a good memory, and if the numbers are spoken, I would remember them. If they are written though, there is a good chance I'll mix them up, I already do it for street addresses and phone numbers.
Interesting post. I suspect as
Ewen
related article about an ordinary guy who won a memory championship may interest you:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/02/20/magazine/mind-secrets.html?src=me&ref=general
As far as remembering numbers goes I use this story to remember my phone number, otherwise I had no chance of remembering the numbers alone: Degrees in a circle, minus 1, 2 squared is 4 which is 2 times 2.
And for more fun, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syllable#Syllable-less_languages .
Who knows what twisted brain would associate with an asterisk, for example.