Re: CHAT: Parallelism

On Mon, 14 Jun 1999, dunn patrick w wrote:

> On Sun, 13 Jun 1999, Nik Taylor wrote:
>
> > Tom Wier wrote:
> > > I think all it shows is that the concept of a phoneme is just an idealization,
> > > but a necessary and useful one
> >
> > That's something like what I think.  I do believe that something like
> > the phoneme is stored in the brain, and that the brain, *when producing
> > speech* uses those phonemes, but, of course, in production they are
> > smeared, and *when hearing speach*, the brain deduces the phonemes from
> > that "smeared" sound.  I don't think that words are stored in the brain
> > as "holistic" unit, but rather as a serious of phonemes.
>
> I admit to being ignorant about linguistics, but I'm not a completely
> moron about psychology, and I'm fairly certain that studies have shown
> that we process information better in clusters -- for instance, we
> remember a phone number like 666-1369 better than, say, 238-9820.
>
I agree.  Remembering such things as numbers and names does involve
finding and processing patterns and relationships.  Ambiguity
arises in attempts at remebering information aurally.  More likely a
person will visualize for clarification or maybe attempt to recall general
concepts rather than think in sounds.

Remembering sounds might be synonymous to remembering colors and shapes.
Relation and context, the cluster or the 'background' in which the bit
is found as well as the purpose of the bit, plays a vital role in
cognition.

Doesn't it?

David

***People are only able to handle 7 (+2 or -2) bits of information at a
time.  Is anyone here more familiar with this 'bit' of information, or
information theory in general?