Jocelyn Penny Small (1993) Visual Display of Text Affects Visual Display of Recall:. Psycoloquy: 4(20) Reading (12)

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PSYCOLOQUY (ISSN 1055-0143) is sponsored by the American Psychological Association (APA).
Psycoloquy 4(20): Visual Display of Text Affects Visual Display of Recall:

VISUAL DISPLAY OF TEXT AFFECTS VISUAL DISPLAY OF RECALL:
EVIDENCE FROM ANTIQUITY
Commentary on Hartley on Small on Skoyles on Reading

Jocelyn Penny Small
U.S. Center
Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae
Alexander Library
Rutgers University
New Brunswick, NJ 08903

JPSMALL@ZODIAC.RUTGERS.EDU

Abstract

Small (1992) mentions a side-effect of dividind text displays into visual chunks. I provide indirect corroboration from techniques of memorizing texts in Classical Antiquity and the Middle Ages, according to which it is easier to recall text by remembering the way it appeared in the "original" than by memorizing it as an isolated string.

Keywords

dyslexia, connectionism, development, error correction, reading.
1. I very much appreciate Hartley's (1992) correction of my comment (Small 1992, 1.6) on the efficacy of dividing the display of text into coherent, visual chunks. He mentions (5.0) a side-effect of such displays: in one test his subjects recall text in the same format in which it had been originally displayed. He adds that "more studies are needed to look at this aspect of how the presentation of the text affects how people might recall it." I am pleased to thank him by giving indirect corroboration from techniques of memorizing texts in Classical Antiquity and the Middle Ages.

2. Quintilian (11.11.2.32-33), writing in the first century A.D., recommends that:

   There is one thing which will be of assistance to everyone, namely,
   to learn a passage by heart from the same tablets on which he has
   committed it to writing.  For he will have certain tracks to guide
   him in his pursuit of memory, and the mind's eye will be fixed not
   merely on the pages on which the words were written, but on
   individual lines, and at times he will speak as though he were
   reading aloud. Further, if the writing should be interrupted by some
   erasure, addition or alteration, there are certain symbols
   available, the sight of which will prevent us from wandering from off
   the track. This device bears some resemblance to the mnemonic system
   which I mentioned above [the "architectural" system of loci], but if
   my experience is worth anything, it is at once more expeditious and
   more effective. [1]

This advice is an application of the idea that recall works best if you recreate the context in which you first experienced and, in this case, first memorized something -- a phenomenon well known to psychologists (for example, Baddeley 1990, 268-271; and Neisser 1988).

3. Quintilian (11.2.28-29) further suggests:

   If certain portions prove especially difficult to remember, it will
   be found advantageous to indicate them by certain marks, the
   remembrance of which will refresh and stimulate the memory. For
   there can be but few whose memory is so barren that they will fail
   to recognize the symbols with which they have marked different
   passages.

In other words, if your text does not come ready-made with signs of division or markings, you should feel free to put them in. While today we sometimes frown on marking the printed page, ancient texts were supposed to be "annotated" by the owner. The classical habit of writing without any spaces or punctuation (scriptura continua), in fact, forced all readers to punctuate the text for themselves either mentally or physically with some kind of marking. If someone else punctuates the text, in effect does all the work for you, you will not be able to remember that text as easily. Mary Carruthers (1990, 247), in her study of memory in the Middle Ages, convincingly argues that in medieval manuscripts "the basic function of all page decoration [is] to make each page memorable." That is, the decoration, which changes between and within pages makes each part of the text distinctive and hence easier to memorize. [2]

4. Thus, according to the evidence from antiquity, it is easier to recall text by remembering the way it appeared in the "original" than by memorizing it, as if it were an isolated string of words devoid of any physical arrangement.

NOTES

[1]. The quotations from Quintilian are from the Institutio Oratoria. as translated by H. E. Butler in the Loeb Classical Library edition: Harvard University Press (Cambridge, MA and London 1922).

[2]. See especially: Chapter 7 "Memory and the Book," a fascinating account of how illuminations, text, and memory worked together (Carruthers 1990).

REFERENCES

Baddeley, Alan. (1990) Human Memory. Theory and Practice Allyn and Bacon: (Boston, etc.)

Carruthers, Mary. (1990) The Book of Memory Cambridge University Press: (Cambridge).

Hartley, James. (1992) The Visual Chunking of Text. PSYCOLOQUY 3(66) reading.11

Neisser, Ulric. (1988) Time Present and Time Past in M. M. Gruneberg, P. E. Morris, and R. N. Sykes, editors, Practical Aspects of Memory John Wiley & Sons: (Chichester, etc.) 545-560.

Small, J. P. (1992) Historical Development of Writing and Reading. PSYCOLOQUY 3(61) reading.10


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