It is because of scriptio continua that most reading in the Middle Ages was done aloud and often with an audience. These written works were also written in scriptio continua words were connected without spaces and sentences were connected without punctuation, making it difficult for the reader to read the words without reading them aloud. At this time, written works were meant to be external memory aids. īy fifth century BC, many texts had been committed to paper, scrolls as long as 60 feet to be more precise. The use of the "brave prince" and the "beautiful princess" time and time again was necessary to keep the oral tradition alive. This repetition is in use in many fairy tales. Walter Ong, priest, philosopher, and English professor, has found that people remember best when things are rhythmic and repeated. The use of "clever Odysseus" and "swift-footed Achilles" is this evidence. " Buddha's teachings were passed down in an unbroken chain of oral tradition for four centuries until they were committed to writing in Sri Lanka in the first century BC." In 1920, Milman Parry, in his master's thesis, discovered that the stylistic quirks and bizarre repetition found in the Odyssey and the Iliad were evidence of the works' oral transmission. He was of the opinion that writing was a "recipe not for memory, but for reminding" and the person relying on the written word would only give off the illusion of a person possessing knowledge. He believed that, if the Egyptian people were to take up writing, their reliance on their internal memory would decrease in exchange for external memory. Themis, however, was wary of the implications the written word would have on memory. In Plato's Phaedrus, Socrates tells the story of how Theuth, the Egyptian god and inventor of writing, approached the king of Egypt, Themis, in order to offer the Egyptian people what he regarded as a branch of learning that would improve memory. Oral tradition and the externalization of memory Even people, or prompters, can be used as external memory aids.
These aids also include taking notes in class, carrying a grocery list to the supermarket, or jotting down dates on a planner. A large part of these aids come from technology people use their smartphones to remind them when they have meetings and Facebook reminds people of their friends' birthdays.
When a person uses something beside one's own internal memory tricks, traits, or talents to help them remember certain events, facts, or even things to do, they are using an external memory aid. External memory is memory that uses cues from the environment to aid remembrance of ideas and sensations.
0 kommentar(er)
