Happened to look this post up again this morning and apparently it’s review season, so here goes...
This post inspired me to play around with some very basic visualisation exercises last year. I didn’t spend that long on it, but I think of myself as having a very weak visual imagination and this pushed me in the direction of thinking that I could improve this a good deal if I put the work in. It was also fascinating to surface some old visual memories.
I’d be intrigued to know if you’ve kept using these techniques since writing the post.
Not strictly as described, but my reliance on visualization has grown with time. I’m currently in a biomedical engineering program, so much of the subject matter is visual. In the past, I would tend to learn by remembering descriptions of things. This didn’t work very well, either for understanding or memorization.
Now, I read much more slowly, and focus on building a picture in my mind as I go of what the book is describing. Usually, it’s more of a cartoon or schematic, which is all that I need.
One framework for working memory is that it’s composed of two distinct mechanisms: an audio loop and a visual sketchpad. My interpretation is that in the past, I relied almost exclusively on the audio loop, and almost not at all on the visual sketchpad. Now, I use the sketchpad much more than the audio loop. I think it improves my understanding of the material, and that this leads to more robust memory formation as well. I also will spend time, after reading a chunk of material, going over it several times in my mind from memory, to make sure that I understand the relationships between the ideas.
However, I no longer think it’s a particularly sensible goal to try and build long-term, highly-detailed memories of an entire textbook, just for its own sake. Working in an engineering lab, that’s just not how you move things forward. It’s good to understand the textbook, know what’s in it, and be able to use it as a resource for going deeper when necessary. However, choosing to memorize every detail in a textbook, for its own sake, now strikes me as folly.
So is it well worth developing your visualization abilities in service of creativity and the ability to learn and understand? With time, I feel more strongly that this has been, and will continue to be, a high-impact skill for me.
Is it worth memorizing a textbook? With time, I have come to feel like this is a bad idea.
Happened to look this post up again this morning and apparently it’s review season, so here goes...
This post inspired me to play around with some very basic visualisation exercises last year. I didn’t spend that long on it, but I think of myself as having a very weak visual imagination and this pushed me in the direction of thinking that I could improve this a good deal if I put the work in. It was also fascinating to surface some old visual memories.
I’d be intrigued to know if you’ve kept using these techniques since writing the post.
Not strictly as described, but my reliance on visualization has grown with time. I’m currently in a biomedical engineering program, so much of the subject matter is visual. In the past, I would tend to learn by remembering descriptions of things. This didn’t work very well, either for understanding or memorization.
Now, I read much more slowly, and focus on building a picture in my mind as I go of what the book is describing. Usually, it’s more of a cartoon or schematic, which is all that I need.
One framework for working memory is that it’s composed of two distinct mechanisms: an audio loop and a visual sketchpad. My interpretation is that in the past, I relied almost exclusively on the audio loop, and almost not at all on the visual sketchpad. Now, I use the sketchpad much more than the audio loop. I think it improves my understanding of the material, and that this leads to more robust memory formation as well. I also will spend time, after reading a chunk of material, going over it several times in my mind from memory, to make sure that I understand the relationships between the ideas.
However, I no longer think it’s a particularly sensible goal to try and build long-term, highly-detailed memories of an entire textbook, just for its own sake. Working in an engineering lab, that’s just not how you move things forward. It’s good to understand the textbook, know what’s in it, and be able to use it as a resource for going deeper when necessary. However, choosing to memorize every detail in a textbook, for its own sake, now strikes me as folly.
So is it well worth developing your visualization abilities in service of creativity and the ability to learn and understand? With time, I feel more strongly that this has been, and will continue to be, a high-impact skill for me.
Is it worth memorizing a textbook? With time, I have come to feel like this is a bad idea.
Thanks for the reply! I also feel like I rely heavily on the audio loop currently, hoping I can boost the visual sketchpad side.