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Comment by extr | Hacker News Reader

I'm going to be straight, a lot of this just seems like, at best, general advice for getting things done that may or may not work for any given person. At worst, some pseudo-scientific mumbo jumbo that references disproven concepts. It's a red flag to me when paragraphs start with "Research shows..." with no context/evidence in sight.

>You need to be aware of your finite amount of willpower.

Didn't willpower depletion fail to replicate last year?

> Research shows that a trained memory improves your ability to concentrate...There are many strategies you can apply to train your memory.

I was under the impression that working memory is one of the most difficult (if not impossible) things to train or improve.

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> I was under the impression that working memory is one of the most difficult (if not impossible) things to train or improve.

I'm not a psychologist, but the way I understand "improving your working memory" is that it's not the number of units in working memory that increases, but the conceptual complexity of each unit.

So, lets say that I practice Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and have only 3 slots of working memory.

If I'm a beginner, each slot may contain such elements as "pull his arm across my midline", "pull his head towards me", and "post my leg on his hip". These units are only a few of the steps you need to perform a successful armbar from guard.

If I'm more experienced in the domain, each slot in working memory may contain such elements as "perform an armbar", "if that fails do a pendulum sweep", and "when I'm in mount perform an Ezekiel choke."

In each case, only three slots occupy the working memory. But the conceptual complexity of each unit is an order of magnitude greater in the experienced person's case. And the effect of the working memory is correspondingly "improved".

A consequence of this is that the power of your memory is domain specific (your memory is better in domains where you have more experience and interest).

I was more talking about dual n-back style training, that tries to improve your generalized memory ability. Of course you're right there's another way to look at it, but it's basically the difference between crystallized and fluid intelligence. You know more about Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, but you wouldn't say your IQ has increased due to that.

Now that I'm rereading the passage, it seems the author was proposing a method of loci type approach, which is great for memorizing specific things. But not so much for general working memory OR for gaining domain-specific contextual knowledge that makes your current working memory more effective. And not sure how it relates to concentration. Sort of a fuzzy paragraph, much like the rest of the piece.

I believe what you are describing is what they call "chunking."

Any references to what "they" say about it?

(I'm investigating various questions including of STWM, ideas, and networks or clusters of ideas.)

The concept of chunking is covered in Learning How To Learn. I think the provide references as well.

https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn

This isn't bad:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chunking_(psychology)

It's like a grocery bag for ideas. The more familiar they are the more you can represent them with a single abstract concept in your working memory that basically acts as a pointer to the various items contained in the concrete implementation.

Here's another reference you may enjoy:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2657600/

What is STWM?

Thanks.

STWM: short-term working memory. A fascinating presentation by Sander van der Leeuw on the interactions of that and anthropology: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=80dR9Q2glgY

I'm skeptical about willpower, too.. but what about "cognitive resources"? I bookmarked this because while I don't know if it's the whole and full truth (how could it be?), it certainly seems interesting, the whole talk is but here's the start of the relevant bit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKTxC9pl-WM&t=8m23s

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