Cognitive Psychology

Human memory... the cognitive and neurological mechanisms that allow us to process streams of sensory information, to create semantic networks and organise data in a meaningful way. It seems quite abstract, given the subject matter covered in Machine Theatre. But when one considers the way in which memory systems are thought to work, spatial and temporal forms of montage can be seen in a different light. The conventional "mult-store model" of memory posits that sensory information may pass through three information filtering, processing and storage systems. Sensory memory has a vast storage capacity, though information is not processed meaningfully, and much of the data is lost in a matter of seconds. To make sense of this data, we "selectively attend" to various elements from sensory memory and bring them into short term memory, which has an extremely limited capacity (typically about 7 "items"). (van Iersel et al 2005, "Nelson Psychology: VCE Units 3 & 4", pp. 201-211)

To extrapolate, it seems that if the flood of information passing through sensory memory must be filtered by a short term memory system with such a limited information capacity, we are then not designed to process vast amounts of sensory information in any meaningful way. To make sense of an object, a character, an information surface or whatever else, we must take this raw sensory data and integrate it with previously established semantic networks within our long-term memory. (van Iersel et al 2005, "Nelson Psychology: VCE Units 3 & 4", pp. 201-211) Could this perhaps explain why we drifted away from spatial narrative to begin with?

Interesting musing: linear perception of information gives us a sense of "self". If we were to process non-linear, de-centralised streams of information, would we lose this "self", this central hub of percecption? Consciousness as we know it deteriorates in the face of radical non-linearity... becoming attuned to *everything* all at once.