I want to suggest that phenomena that relates to your
person and identity, things that you find peculiar or interesting, things that
aggravate you and things that you despise, will entertain your attention span
longer than other kinds of phenomena. Perhaps it isn’t just the length of the
attention span but how deeply (thoroughly?) we embed the information in our
brains and how much wiring our brain devotes to a specific piece or collection
of data.
The length of one’s attention span seems also to be important because if you can have a longer attention span for a particular area
of knowledge, you will be able to encode and store more of the information
about the topic; this results in enhanced memory retrieval.
Furthermore, it seems that anything that evokes a fiery
emotional response will also form a more trenchant, recallable memory. One of the problems for developing a better memory in other
domains of knowledge (that are entirely new) may be that instead of generating
an emotional response, they elicit an indifferent response. If you find an area of knowledge, say,
politics, to “boil your blood” you probably have a better grasp on this subject
than someone who has more of a flat, indifferent response to the subject.
Perhaps the material
you are learning bores you or doesn’t pique your interest or excite your
thought processes enough to establish focus.
This past quarter I’ve experienced just that. As I reflect on the current
subject matter, I see that it doesn’t interest me and it doesn’t relate to any
experiences I’ve ever had so my focus and memory (and thus learning) capacity
is negatively impacted. Passing the
class matters—and so far, I’m doing that, but for me, longer-term retention is
always the ultimate goal
If only there could be a method (or pill) to make us more
interested (or more emotionally affected or rewarded?) by a subject so that
focus and memory were better played out.
