Conceptmapping Thesis: Chapter 2, part 10.2c: Imagery and recall
10.2c Imagery and recall
The Buzan Centre promotes many memory aiding techniques. The underlying theme to these systems is to incorporate the creative and logical functions of the brain. By synthesising informational, perhaps abstract facts with experiences we are able to commit them to memory. This is related to an issue raised in [MIM] that questions the significance of the human brain being divided into two broadly specialised hemispheres. Apparently, this specialisation is a characteristic unique to humans; animals other than man have a symmetrical brain with no apparent hemispherical differentiation in brain function beyond the:
normal contralateral pairing of the left side of the body with the right-brain and vice-versa. This symmetry would appear to provide vital information about the extensive area of the spatial environment, thus enhancing the animal’s ability to construct accurate representations, or “topological maps”.…
Because of the development of language, human beings have been able to abandon total reliance on a topological map of the environment, which is expressed in the form of visual, auditory, or tactile imagery. The left brain language function permits an alternative mode of expressing spatial relationship. It permits abstract thinking, which is removed from or independent of actual objects present in the external world.…
… perhaps it is the two together that serve to make the most truly useful representation of the world, partly map-like, partly abstract.
This, then, is the essence of item number 9 in Figure 2-1 - by using these two hemispheres in synergy we keep our mind interested, stimulated, and hence able to use its spatial skills in the cognitive field. Item 10 elaborates and suggests that Mind Mapping is advantageous because we do not have to worry about expressing grammatically the interconnections, furthermore we have some place to put the ideas so that ideas in proximity (point 7 again) are somehow related, these ideas may even be approximations to each other.[1] Of course, there may be questionable issues related to this, for example: if so many thoughts can come to us simultaneously then maybe we can become overwhelmed? Whether or not this is true, it is surely preferable to have a lot of thoughts than to have none and should confusion descend then we are always at liberty to revert back to text.
Point 12 is to “be on a roll” - to have gained momentum during thinking; as the mind stops less often to let the writing catch up, the thinking process is less stunted than would otherwise be the case.
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[1] Both words are derived from Middle English, from Late Latin approximâtus, past participle of approximâre, to approach : Latin ad-, ad- + proximâre, to come near (from proximus, nearest).