Quote:
Originally Posted by MrMaxwell
I can't remember much of shit but they do some pretty fucking seemingly arbitrary tests to you
This one makes a lot more sense to me now than it did when I was young
I COULD NEVER do 200 or 400 that I am aware of
I think I did close to 20 two digit ones
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there is still a universal hard limit on the pieces of information which can be stored and retrieved from short term memory WITHOUT PRACTICING TO GO FURTHER. Usually, 7. going beyond 7 to 9-10-11 etc requires practice. I think it took the original guy something like 50 hours to get to 11 or so. then something like another 100 hours to get to 20.
Going further than 7-8-9 digits means not only a LOT of practice but continually coming up with new retrieval strategies and methods of grouping and organizing the information in a manner in which it can be recalled without error. Usually relating it to something else or telling a story etc. To get to 200 pieces of information in short term memory and being able to recall it, i think it would take hundreds and hundreds of hours of practice and that assumes a strong dedication to doing it as well as successfully figuring out strategies to organize and group numbers in a manner in which they can be successfully recalled... though i'm sure the strategies of others can be searched online as a help.
and by the way "20 two digit ones" can be "10 four digit ones" or "5 8 digit ones" etc... so how many pieces of information it technically is and whether or not you can recall it successfully, depends entirely on how your brain groups the numbers together and organizes them.
Like a chessboard for example.
You can arrange pieces on a board in a "game like" manner and ask an experienced chess player to stare at it for 10 seconds, then recreate it and he can. That's because he's not remembering each piece and where it's at,... he's recalling a simple pattern of pieces which has come up a lot in many years of playing chess. So that could technically be "one piece" of information... yet we look at it and call it "genius".
Of course, when you put the pieces on the board in a random, non game-like manner... the experienced chess player does no better than any random person.
There is always a chasm between what we perceive to be the skill (or ability) and what it actually is. We misperceive whats happening and then attribute it to genius or some innate talent. Thats never the actual case, however.