Video Asylum

Posted by Anton (A) on December 10, 2007 at 08:48:12

In Reply to: RE: I thought it is the other way... posted by sser2 on December 9, 2007 at 22:03:36

Hi.
Auditory memory is not as good as visual memory for most of the people. In addition, people with ADD suffer more from auditory memory. As a professor I have dealt with this problem even in post-graduate students, and the major problem with this deficiency is auditory memory.

Many students will clearly remember visual imagery more than auditory imagery, and most people do. This has to do with the way our brain works. There are just too many sounds around us and the brain has to be selective in order to process the most important information: that related to survival.

That is one reason visual user interfaces are better than text interfaces in computers and other equipment.

Some people, especially musicians, are different in this respect. They can remember exactly the sounds of the music. Take the examples of Beethoven and Smetana: they were deaf and they could compose without "hearing" the sounds of the music. Most composers work from their minds because the can "hear" the sounds in their brain.

I am a semi profesional musician and conductor, and I can "hear" the music inside my head, so to say. An annecdote: when I arrived home from Vietnam, I had to report to the Veteran's Administration for a checkup. One was a psychiatric evaluation. The doctor asked at one moment if I "heard sounds in my head". I said yes. He looked at me with a smile and said, "I will reffer you for further evaluation. What kind of sounds you hear?" I answered, "musical sounds. I am a musican and I can hear a whole symphony in my head". He looked at me, crumpled the piece of paper that he was using to write his report and said: "you are ok, get the hell out of here".

The point is that most people will remember visual things much better than auditory things and thus watchng a movie once or twice is enough. I have a large collection of movies as well as audio. But the movies I have are some of the best ever produced. I watch them after quite a time, and many times I discover things that I never noticed before and rediscover things that I had forgotten. Similar to recorded music.

Happy listening!