Re: English syllable structure (was, for some reason: Re: Llirine: How to creat a language)

On Fri, 7 Dec 2001, Tristan Alexander McLeay wrote:

> On Thu, 6 Dec 2001, Patrick Dunn wrote:
>
> > Short term memory is not the same thing as "thinking."  We use short term
> > memory to remember phone numbers while we dial them, to remember the last
> > seven words someone said so we can put them in context, and to remember
> > why the hell we went to the kitchen in the first place . . . .
>
> Are you sure? I thought we had to guess that... (About the kitchen, of
> course). I certainly can't ever remember. And is it exactly seven words,
> or is that just a random figure?
Short term memory holds seven to nine bits of information at once.  Add
one more bit of information, though, and it all falls out.

This is why memory aids are so useful; the longer you can hold something
in short term memory, the easier it goes into long term memory.  So if you
can hold "ROY G BIV" in your short term memory, that's one item that you
can "unpack" into seven.

--Patrick


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Prurio modo viri qui in arbore pilosa est.
                        ~~Elvis

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