Sunday, June 29, 2008

Received Wisdom - how the memory works

A recent article in the New York Times summarized how we now know that memory works and why there are so many incorrect pre-conceptions in peoples' minds. Apparently, when we hear a fact, whether it is of the type that "the earth revolves around the sun," or "Barack Obama is not a Muslim," we put the concept, without distinguishing between "not" and "is"or whether it is false or true in a compartment of the brain, and use knowledge of context to qualify it. Over time, it is transeferrd in pieces to another part of the brian, but context can become separated. So some people become convinced that the sun revolves around the earth,

This means that whatever we do, misconceptions will arise. Furthermore, it will be very difficult to correct those misconceptions. So to tell someone who believes that Barack Obama is a Muslim, that he is, in fact, not, becomes an uphill battle. The same applies to misconceptions about products and services.

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