
MIT researchers find memory capacity much bigger than previously thought - nickb
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/vision-memory-0908.html
======
dangoldin
To play devil's advocate here - maybe it's because many of their subjects were
MIT students.

~~~
Zev
It says the research was done by MIT students, not the test subjects were MIT
students. Perhaps they found students from other universities in the area or
the general public?

~~~
ilamont
Even among the general public in that area, the concentration of college
students and grads is high relative to the rest of the country.

------
jwilliams
Couldn't help but think "MIT researchers find memory capacity much bigger than
they remember" would have been a better title.

~~~
whacked_new
Also, it's visual long term memory.

------
Eliezer
How is this long-term? They were tested on recall the same day. Long-term
memory would be a month later.

Still, very impressive research - I presume the misunderstanding (or
omission?) occurred at the press office.

~~~
jsmcgd
I think the mechanism of short term memory works for about 30 seconds and
memory recall after that length of time uses a different long term memory
mechanism. So I think they are right to describe recalling events of 5 hrs ago
as a function of long term memory.

------
ilamont
Interesting article, but there is no actual size estimate.

I wonder how this impacts Kurzweil's "Singularity" timeline?

