Just returned form completing the Ride for Heart (50K) here in TorontoMy wife had an excuse to go to a bridal shower so I did it solo this year. It’s become sort of a tradition with me to go participate in this event. out of the last 13 years, I believe I only missed one year.
Since I was on my own, I decided to bring my iPod along. Gave me a chance to get back to an audio book I had set aside. The 2.5 hour ride gave me exactly the time I needed to finish This is Your Brain on Music.
Learned an interesting fact about cognitive memory management. There are two types of memory: long term and short term or “working memory“.
Apparently working memory is limited and can normally only sustain 9 items at one time. So our brain uses “chunking” to retain more complex memory structures in working memory, thanks to knowledge retained from the past.
For example, when memorizing a phone number we “chunk” the area code as one item rather than the 3 individual digits, since we know what an area code is for say Toronto.
