the overflowing brain information overload and the limits of working memory nov 2008

[...]... amount of information through per unit of time The crux of Miller’s article is that there are limits to our brain s capacity The number seven, he points out, pops up with uncanny frequency and has the power to stimulate the imagination, as Miller describes at the end: “What about the seven wonders of the world, the seven seas, the seven deadly sins, the seven daughters of Atlas in the Pleiades, the seven... areas of the brain will start to fill the space If you lose an index finger, the area of the brain that once received signals from that finger will shrink; the adjacent area, which receives signals from the middle finger, will expand The brain map has been redrawn An even greater information deficit is the loss of visual information in the blind Measurements of the brain activity introduction 11 of blind... that the visual areas of their brains are activated despite the absence of any actual visual perceptions It thus seems as if the people are using their visual cortex to process other sensory information instead We could therefore be looking at the same plasticity as when the brain receives no sensory information from a lost finger: surrounding areas expand and take over the unused part of the brain. .. seven ages of man, the seven levels of hell, the seven primary colours, the seven notes of the musical scale, and the seven days of the week?” Miller’s idea is illustrated in Figure 1.1, where the xaxis gives the amount of information received and the yaxis how much information is reproduced correctly Take, for example, a test in which you are asked to repeat a string of numbers read out to you The y-axis... one day The volume and complexity of the information we’re expected to handle continues to increase If there are any inbuilt limitations that serve as some kind of shutoff valve, what mental functions are we then talking about? Where will we find the bottleneck in the brain s capacity to process information? ■ Brain Plasticity What complicates and enriches the discussion on the CroMagnon brain and Miller’s... the general public and the professional audience alike Elkhonon Goldberg New York May 2008 xii foreword Contents ■ 1 Introduction: The Stone Age Brain Meets the Information Flood 3 2 The Information Portal 19 3 The Mental Workbench 33 4 Models of Working Memory 45 5 The Brain and the Magical Number Seven 55 6 Simultaneous Capacity and Mental Bandwidth 7 Wallace’s Paradox 8 Brain Plasticity 69 83 93 9... attention, and of the various ways in which they may become aberrant in development His research has also resulted in a method for cognitive rehabilitation through training of working memory, a method now in use both in Europe and the United States The brain is very much in vogue Over the last few years popular books about the brain have become a literary genre in and of itself The Overflowing Brain stands... (volume of information correctly reproduced) you can easily remember them and tap them into a keyboard You are on the straight part of the graph, where information input is the same as output But if you are asked to repeat twelve numbers, or twenty, you will probably be able to tap in only seven of them correctly You are now on the part of the graph where the curve bends under the confines of your capacity... directions of the “Go straight ahead for two blocks and then left one block” kind, you’ll probably have no trouble remembering them However, if the description is more like “Go straight ahead for two blocks and then one block to the left and the right again for three blocks, then left and then three right, and you’re there,” your chances of getting lost start to increase It is too much information. .. contribution by restoring scientific rigor and clarity to the concept of working memory. ” This is one of the many qualities that make The Overflowing Brain invaluable both for the general public and for the professional audience foreword xi Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is another example of an originally valuable and meaningful concept having been diluted and inflated beyond recognition, scientific . h1" alt="" The Overflowing Brain This page intentionally left blank The Overfl owing Brain Information Overload and the Limits of Working Memory Torkel Klingberg, MD, PhD Professor of Cognitive. Flood 3 2. The Information Portal 19 3. The Mental Workbench 33 4. Models of Working Memory 45 5. The Brain and the Magical Number Seven 55 6. Simultaneous Capacity and Mental Bandwidth 69 . read and enjoyed by members of the general public and the profes- sional audience alike. Elkhonon Goldberg New York May 2008 xii foreword xiii 1. Introduction: The Stone Age Brain Meets the Information