Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Brain Habits You Didn’t Realize You Had

I never knew about these things before. Really are useful information. Now I know why phone numbers, especially home phone numbers, consists of seven digits. It's because of our short-term maximum capacity of our short-term memory. Now I know the colour chartreuse. And did you know that our subconscious mind is smarter than us? Isn't it amazing how our mind works for us? Well, just like the title of the post...these are the brain habits we didn't realize we had....
1) The maximum capacity of your short-term memory is seven.
Humans have basically three forms of memory: Sensory, Long-term and Short-term. Long-term memory is just like hard-drive space. Similarly, Short-term memory functions like a very small RAM. This Short-term memory is capable to hold only about five to nine (seven is an average) items at a time. Retrieving information longer than this will need you to either pack it together into seven units or store it in Long-term memory. Have you observed that the most phone numbers have only seven digits?


2) The most visible color is Chartreuse

Yellowish green, chartreuse, is naturally placed right in the middle of the frequencies of visible light. Human eyes have receptors for green, blue and red colors. Being placed in the middle, chartreuse actuates the most of these receptors to fire, making it distinct and easier to spot. For the same reason, in some metropolises, firetrucks have been modified from red to a yellowish green color to make them more visible and obvious to the eye.


3) Subconscious is smarter than you.

Subconscious is smarter than you. In other words, it is more powerful. In a recent study, a square was attributed to a location on a computer screen through a complex pattern. After watching it out, people began to get results better than the chance of recognizing where the square would crop up next. However, when they were inquired to consciously find out the pattern, even given a few hours, nobody really did it!


4) There are two nervous systems.

We have two sets of nervous systems. One controls excitation, while the other controls inhibition. If you hold out your hand, you might observe minor tremors. This is actually stimulated by slight, random differences in the amount each of the two systems are firing.
(source from mindcafe.org - images via flickr and justbesplendid.tumblr)

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh oh, now that we need to use area codes, I guess we're in trouble! Actually I can NEVER remember my own phone number! I have it written down on a piece of paper in my wallet.

boya arsila said...

That's what happen to me now..since I have two mobile phones..I don't remember any of my friends phone numbers..can you imagina if the phone memory is broken oh noo..

Anonymous said...

LOL, I know, it's so embarrassing! When I was booking my hotels for my move, and the question of "phone number?" came up, I was like aaaah 51, no 57 uhhhh....I always wonder if people think I'm a crook or something, ha ha!