Babble
This article or a quote at least from it could find its way into the introduction of my thesis. Sam Taylor provides the background and motivation for his new novel, The Amnesiac, is published by Faber and Faber, £12.99I particularly like the following paragraph from the article:
"Memory truly is evanescent, shadowy and ambiguous. Try to pin it down and it just dissolves or changes shape or conjures up an equally plausible (but false) alternative. As almost every scientific experiment into human memory has shown, no two people, in the same situation, ever recall precisely the same set of events and details; and, if you ask them again weeks, months or years later, those memories are just as liable to become (illogically) more detailed and certain, as they are to fade away or mutate completely. Memory, in other words, is as untrustworthy as a politician. Even more so, indeed, as we have no understanding of its motives or methods."
Yet memory is central to many of the things we do. When we ride a bike or make a cup of tea we use our "procedural" memories of how to perform these tasks. The decisions we make, stories we tell or events that we share with others rely on our "episodic" memories. Further, the language we use, the way we interact with objects and things, and the facts that we use in arguments all rely on our "semantic" memories.
So, our memories are really what makes us who we are - it governs our behaviour. This is the central premise of my work. I'm interested in the way people manage and re-find information and the role that memory plays in these processes. Despite memory being "shadowy, ambiguous and difficult to pin down" it is possible to find patterns in what we remember and analyse our behavour with respect to memories. I have shown that memory is central to these behaviours. We re-find based on what we remember and what we remember changes based on who we are, our work practices, the type of task and age of the information we are looking for ...
Roll up, roll up. Who wants to read my thesis.
