Links between writting stlye and long term storage location: why anecdotes are effective
(conciseness doesn't need to be the name of the game)
Works of Narrative and Expository writting may not differ heaily in the information they convey, but the distinction in the styles of writing may actually correspond to differential storage of information encoded in Narrative and Expository structures.
Narrative writting is rich with imagery, the goal is emmersion, the aim is to forge a perceptual experience in the absence of actual sensory inputs. This activates the same encoding, consolidation, and storage systems as real life perceptual experience- activating precepts stored in perceptual aread, the visuospatial sketchpad, and ultimately, storage of narrative information in episodic memory.
The aim of expository writting on the other hand, is to deposit information into working memory (typically the phonological loop, as most expository writting is, well, verbal..) as efficiently as possible for immediate semantic processing and commitment into sematic LTM storage.
This is the start of an essay whose thesis will ultimately be that a narrative approach to conveying challenging factual concepts and information may be far more successful than a straight to the point expository style, because processing and interpretting perceptual information in context, and with reference to its impact on our own experiences ismore in line with the evolutionary origins of cognitive systems (as complex control systems guiding self preservation, and *not* storage spaces for accurate, yet irrelevant external information.)
establish the sequence of transmission of information drawing on multiple store model and also shannon's information transmission model
draw out two parallel diagrams of how perceived information gets filed into either episodic or semantic storage
discuss consolidation and transfer from episodic processing ares (hippocampus) to semantic storage areas (neocortex), and the resulting persistence of consolidated memory
superior persistence of autobiogrphical memory (which, by its nature starts out in episodic form), in both epiodic and semanic stores
All of this is normal, but what is happening when we try to encode semantic information directly without a corresponding episodic context?
Interdependence of episodic and semantic memory: Evidence from neuropsychology
Perceptual and semantic contributions to episodic memory: evidence from semantic dementia and Alzheimer's disease
Memory Systems Do Not Divide on Consciousness: Reinterpreting Memory in Terms of Activation and Binding
~ style note- how cool would it be to actually write this essay in narrative form