Friday December 3, 2004
Name That Phenomenon
Sometimes when I'm recalling or trying to recall a piece of information that I read in a book or magazine, I can remember the position of the information on the page (left of right page, and the location on the page), even if I can't remember the author or the title of the work. This happens to me all the time, and I know I've heard other people mention the same thing happening to them, but as far as I know there's no name for this phenomenon. Has anyone ever heard of one? It would be nice to be able to refer to it in less than a paragraph.
I was reminded of this a few days ago by an instance of a related phenomenon. I was in a professor's office, and we were searching his bookshelves for a book that he thought would be relevant to a paper I'm writing. We knew the title and author of the book, but his shelves aren't alphabetized and we were having trouble finding it. I asked him what color the book was, because I can almost always remember the appearance of the cover of a book I've read, and I was surprised when he answered that he didn't know. Doesn't everybody's brain work like that?
I am The Tensor, and I approve this post.
02:07 PM
in Linguistics
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» Null Word Iregiving: Topomnesia from polyglot conspiracy
Last week, The Tensor (Tenser, he said) posted a cry for help: What's it called when you recall information based on what the information looked like when it was presented to you?
Sometimes when I'm recalling or trying to recall a piece of inform... [Read More]
Tracked on Dec 7, 2004 6:56:01 AM
Comments
I'm not sure if *everyone's* brain works this way, but mine does. Part of why I'm (usually) successful at test-taking is because I'm able to recall information based on where it was on my sheet of notes, or in a textbook, so if I cram the night before, and those orientations are fresh in my mind, I can pretty accurately recall the information itself by remembering how it looked. I always considered that it must be some kind of "eidetic memory" (aka "photographic memory"), but it's not as intense (or rare) as that; it doesn't seem like the page is actually THERE in front of you, it's just that the visual organization of the information is what you remember. I wanna know the real name for this too!
Posted by: polyglot conspiracy at Dec 3, 2004 2:52:59 PM
I'd just call it a special case of "spatial memory", but I don't know whether that's really the technical name. It's a known technique for memorizing long lists of stuff: imagine a room you know really well and put the items in various places around the room; to recall the list, survey the room in your head. IIRC that's how the famous Russian journalist did it. The same technique was adapted for magical use by Katharine Kerr in _Daggerspell_ et al (it appears in the third or fourth book, iirc).
Posted by: Andy B at Dec 3, 2004 3:09:26 PM
This happens to me all of the time. Even in regards to webpages. Last night I was trying to recall a term mentioned in a page I read 6 months ago but had retained no bookmark to. The only thing I had to go on was that I remembered what the site looked like. A bit help that was.
When I take tests, I agree with the first commenter. The phenomenon manifests itself often in terms of history and other atomic data. Physics and math--not so much.
http://www.ericdigests.org/2001-1/multiple.html
This page discusses the theory of Multiple Intelligences:
Linguistic, Logical/Mathematical, Bodily/Kinesthetic, Musical, Naturalist, Interpersonal, Intrapersonal, and Visual/Spatial Intelligence: The ability to recognize form, space, color, line, and shape and to graphically represent visual and spatial ideas.
Posted by: R.B. Boyer at Dec 3, 2004 3:11:03 PM
When studying for school exams "back then", I sometimes asked my mom to ask me questions from my lecture notes after studying. After the first couple of times, she usually added an "and don't just tell me where on the page it is" to her questions. So, yes, I can very much relate. Same with book covers, to a certain extent.
It'd be interesting to know if your own notes (lecture or otherwise) are arranged in a rather "spatial" way, too. My own are usually a mess of arrows and almost illegible scribblings.
Posted by: Andrea at Dec 3, 2004 3:41:02 PM
I think it's just that we tend to remember things in context. I remember being told in my college psychology class that people tend to do better on exams if they take in the room where they had the class, for example. In this case, the context is a visual artifact, and we remember the context.
The spatial memory technique (among other things) is discussed in detail in Jonathon Spence's The Dream Palace of Mateo Ricci.
Posted by: Will Duquette at Dec 3, 2004 5:53:27 PM
Same for me. And I also remember books by their cover colour, but with quirks. Some colours in some configurations are more salient than others. I might remember a book as "red" when it's dark green with a red front-page design. OTOH, I often can't for the hell of it remember what language I read something in. Only when I try to repeat it word for word or to write it down I realize that my recall doesn't make any sense and everything sounds clumsy and wrong (if, say, the quote is in French and I write in English).
Posted by: chris waigl at Dec 3, 2004 9:05:22 PM
I asked some cog-sci major about this tonight, and she said it was some kind of "source memory", but couldn't specify. So, I don't really know what that means, but there you go.
Posted by: polyglot conspiracy at Dec 5, 2004 7:34:59 PM
Well, if it hasn't got a name, we should make one up. How about "topomnesia", is that a plausible Greek compound? If so, let's start using it in conversation and see if it catches on.
Posted by: The Tensor at Dec 5, 2004 9:23:46 PM
I would say some people do not remember spatially OR visually. I don't. I reckon if your brain has strong spatial memory you are more likely to fall foul of visual tricks.
Posted by: Monjo at Dec 13, 2004 3:09:27 AM
This guy temporarily ruined my locate-by-color ability, but he made the store quite an experience:
http://www.pushby.com/tomas/2004/11/15/index.html
Posted by: Eli at Jan 6, 2005 9:24:56 AM
