Peter Doolittle: How your 'working memory' makes sense of the world

"Life comes at us very quickly, and what we need to do is take that amorphous flow of experience and somehow extract meaning from it." In this funny, enlightening talk, educational psychologist Peter Doolittle details the importance -- and limitations -- of your "working memory," that part of the brain that allows us to make sense of what's happening right now.

TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes (or less). Look for talks on Technology, Entertainment and Design -- plus science, business, global issues, the arts and much more.

[soulreaperichig]

1:23 - 4 components of working memory
1. Stores immediate experiences and a little bit of knowledge.
2. Reaches back into our long term memories and processes it in line with current goals.
3. Working memory capacity leverages.
4. Great for communication and building narratives around conversations.


6:45 - Strategies:
1. We need to repeat/Practice it.
2. Think elaborately and repeatedly.
3. Rather than connecting new to known, we have to connect everything we known to the new and build connections till it becomes meaningful.
4. Use images/ think in images
5 Organization - Structure things we're doing in ways that it makes sense.
6 Support - Use external supports like charts, tables, etc. until it becomes second nature.


9:06 - Take home message
We learn what we process. If we're not processing, we aren't learning.

[mattd]

I literally have had the five words in his video ingrained into my mind for like 3 years now and I don’t know whyy.

[Nibbles]

I remembered those words all the way to the end and I didn't even need them. Now I can't forget them. I do love the idea of driving down a long highway with a forest on one side and Saturn on the other. Listening to music from the radio that uses electrodes while looking in the rear vision mirror and watching my past fade away into the background.

[TimesNuRoman]

I feel like this is the big issue with people, technology and social media today: people are so preoccupied with recording life, rather than processing/living life in the moment. Great talk.

[lalalaso]

"If we're not processing life, we're not living it." So true and so cruel😢

[schizo]

What he says at the end is completely true. From what I can tell, most of everyone including myself who remembered those words to the end did so by doing something like painting a bizarre picture including those words, thereby processing them.

[MJosephMurphy]

Long Covid messed with my working memory. It also gave me a passion for understanding how brains work. Thank you for sharing your knowledge.

[KaneyoshiSouji]

Short, but straight to the point.  I really enjoyed it.

[lalodetarariras]

One of the most helpful TED talks I've seen in long time.

[sutikshnadubey]

Very helpful talk. every bit. Esp the 5 points solution explained in second half of the talk to improve working memory. THANKS!!!
I usually come to youtube to watch ted talks, as it is faster. but now going to ted back, and take notes from transcript.

[alwaysbeeurself]

Wow, I love that last sentence at 9:00, the final take home message: What we process, we learn, if we're not processing life, we're not living it.

[proje]

Çalışan hafızanın 4 bileşeni vardır.
1. Anlık deneyimleri ve biraz bilgiyi depolar.
2. Uzun süreli hafızamıza geri döner ve mevcut hedefler doğrultusunda işler.
3. Çalışan bellek kapasitesinden yararlanır.
4. İletişim ve konuşmalar etrafında anlatılar oluşturmak için harikadır.

Çalışan hafızanın sınırlı bir kapasitesi olduğundan ondan yararlanarak bazı stratejiler yardımıyla başarıya dönüştürebiliriz.
Stratejiler:
1. Hemen Tekrarlamak (bir saat veya bir hafta sonra değil) - Yazmak, not çıkarmak, tartışmak gibi yollarla sürekli pratik yapmak.
2. Ayrıntılı ve açıklayıcı bir şekilde tekrar tekrar düşünmek.
3. Yeni bilgiyi eski bilgiye bağlamak yerine, bildiğimiz her şeyi yeni bilgiye bağlamalı ve anlamlı hale gelene kadar bağlantılar kurmak.
4. Resimleri kullanmak. Resimlerle yazmak ve resimlerle düşünmek.
5. Organizasyon. Yaptığımız şeyleri bir anlam çıkaraca şekilde planlamak.
6. Destek. Resimler, şemalar, tablolar ile desteklemek.

SONUÇ:
İşlediğimizi öğreniyoruz.
Eğer hayatı işlemiyorsak, yaşamıyoruz demektir.

[ninoenriquez]

I still memorized the 5 words: Tree, highway, mirror, Saturn, electrode. I wouldn't want to explain how because I use the most bizarre ways to remember things and that's how I process them haha. Moral of the story is to connect something in your life to the present moment for that moment to have meaning. 

[bestofcritics]

If you are not processing life, you are not living it. Live your life.

I often go into so called the "Hibernate mode" where I would like to just watch some TVs and more to try and forget about working memory cause they suck, and not feel like enjoying or meaningful. But once I change my mind to somethings more valuable and structured in life, you understand that you are able to process your life and find real drive and dedication to live your life.

Just love TED, and hope to be on stage and share knowledge one day :) 

 

[mandypac]

Woke up to this new TED talk on my Youtube feed- breakfast.

[iSwagz]

Anybody else get here from a Super learning course on Udemy?

[uproariousRIOT]

i thought he was going to ask what the five words were again at the end of the video 

[MichaelChernik-zffy]

My short term memory needs links---like I walk into a room and I ask" Why did I come into here?"

I have to walk back into the room where I first had the thought and it seems to be lingering in the air and is picked up by my brain then I can walk back into the room to retrieve why I went into.

It is so much fun getting older----

[Babayaga]

Process existence immediately at the moment. "Do I agree with him/What can I learn from him"
Practise
Think elaborately and illustratively
Use imagery and think about in images
Organisation it by finding meaning
Support the change
Process the life

[ChrissREPoland]

When he said 5 words i Just immagined those words as an full image . There is highway, next to it a tree with a mirror on it in the background there is saturn. And electrodes  are on the road. I have a good image memmory. So probobly If I wanted I could remmember that for as long as I want.

But at the same time i have problem to remmember other concepts . Like names or phone numbers. Yet i can remmember faces of persons I saw weeks ago for a few seconds.