12. How Quickly Can We Take It All In? Attention Refresh Rate -- Something You May Have Heard Nothing About

 

There's another consideration to be added to focus and coherence.  It's "refresh rate" -- the amount of time it takes to get an impression of something before a new impression can be received.  It's like reaction time.

 

Memory takes time to form.  It also takes time to evaporate and make room for the next impression.  Those are built-in time lags to the operation of attention.

A slow refresh rate both increases the time needed to focus and the time needed to achieve coherence -- functions of memory.  The quicker memory can receive an impression, the faster the refresh rate can be and the shorter the time to achieve focus and capture details.  Refresh rate.

Memory is affected both by physiology and by load.  Physiology is the activity of bodily systems; load is the demand placed on the those systems by the information (or sense content) being absorbed.

Some nutritional substances enhance refresh rate -- like caffeine, nootropics, and good diet -- and others impair it -- like alcohol.

Some conditions enhance refresh rate -- like integrity and the coherence (clarity) of information -- and others impair it -- like dishonesty, or incongruity (cognitive dissonance), noisy-mindedness, pain and disease conditions.

As short-term memory gets loaded, refresh rate slows down.  That's a good reason why it's better to do many short sessions of learning than to do few long sessions (why "cramming" doesn't work, long-term).

If you're having trouble absorbing this, either your refresh rate is too slow or you're attempting to absorb faster than your memory allows (too much, too fast).

Clean up your diet and unload your memory (stress level).  Quiet mind has a faster refresh rate than noisy-mindedness.

 

That's all, for today.

 

Next expostulation in a couple of days, or so.

For now, be well -- and eat your vegetables!