이보영 쌤의 세번째 칼럼: '기억과 정보과부하'

세 번째 칼럼에서는 ‘기억과 정보과부화에 대해 다뤄보겠습니다. 

Memory도 이전 칼럼들에서 다뤘던 소재들 만큼 중요한 소재입니다.

기억을 크게

1. sensory memory(감각기억)

2. working memory(작업기억)

3. long term memory(장기기억)  

로 

나눌 수 있는데

이중 

작업기억이 가장 중요합니다.

작업기억은 7+-2 라는 용량한계를 가지고 있습니다. 한 번에 기억할 수 있는 항목이 5개에서 9개 사이라는 말이죠. 이를 초과한 정보가 들어오면 뇌는 과부하가 걸리기 시작하는 데 이를 information overload(정보 과부하)라고 합니다. 이 상태에서 인간은 보통 비합리적인 선택을 하거나 선택을 못하고 멈춰있게 됩니다. 

‘정보과부하’가 등장한 대표적인 기출문제를 보겠습니다.

18년도 6평 23번

If you’ve ever seen the bank of flashing screens at a broker’s desk, you have a sense of the information overload they are up against. When deciding whether to invest in a company, for example, they may take into account the people at the helm; the current and potential size of its market; net profits; and its past, present, and future stock value, among other pieces of information. Weighing all of these factors can take up so much of your working memory that it becomes overwhelmed. Think of having piles and piles of papers, sticky notes, and spreadsheets strewn about your desk, and you get a picture of what’s going on inside the brain. When information overloads working memory this way, it can make brokers ― and the rest of us ― scrap all the strategizing and analyses and go for emotional, or gut, decisions.

① How Information Overload Can Cloud Your Judgment

② Multitasking Increases Your Working Memory!

③ How to Prevent Information Flood 

④ Do Flashing Screens Reduce Information Overload?

⑤ Emotional Judgment: The Secret of Successful Brokers

위 지문은 스크린에서 계속해서 들어오는 많은 정보들 때문에 작업기억이 과부화되면 브로커가 충동적인 결정을 하게 만들 수 있다는 내용입니다.  

위에 있는 문제와 매우 비슷한 다른 문제를 보겠습니다. 

12년도 9평 27번

___________________________________ is aggravated by the overabundance of information at our disposal. While this is obvious enough in some realms ― for example, consider how much information is potentially relevant for estimating the value of Microsoft stock ― even when the information set seems less cluttered, information overload, a state of confusion and decision avoidance, can still occur. In one experiment, shoppers in a supermarket were presented with free samples of jams and jellies. In the first treatment, a small selection was available for tasting; in the second, a large selection was available. While everyone likes the idea of abundant choice, and indeed the table with the greater selection attracted larger crowds, it was the table with fewer samples that led to the most sales. The likely reason is that the large selection led to information overload, the feeling that the decision was too complicated for immediate action.

① Difficulty in assessing information

② The shortage of trustworthy informants

③ Mental fatigue caused by misleading information

④ Indeterminacy arising from indirect information

⑤ The complexity of altering consumer behavior

위 지문은 많은 선택지로 인해 소비자가 정보과부하 상태에 놓이면 오히려 구매를 망설이게 된다는 내용입니다. 충동적인 선택을 한 첫 지문의 브로커와 비슷한 상황이죠. 

작업기억은 정보과부하 관련 말고 다른 주제로도 등장합니다.

17년도 9평 33번

A good deal of the information stored in working memory is encoded in an auditory form, especially when the information is language based. For example, in an early study by Conrad, adults were shown six-letter sequences, with letters being presented visually, one at a time, at intervals of three-fourths of a second. As soon as the last letter of a sequence had been presented, participants in the study wrote down all six of the letters they had seen, guessing at any letters they couldn’t easily recall. When people recalled letters incorrectly, the letters they said they had seen were more likely to resemble the actual stimuli in terms of __________________________________. For example, the letter F was “remembered” as the auditorially similar letter S 131 times but as the visually similar letter P only 14 times. Similarly, the letter V was remembered as B 56 times but as X only 5 times. [3점]

① how the letters were visually represented

② how the letters sounded than how they looked

③ how the length of the letter sequence was recognized

④ how the letters were ordered than how they were pronounced

⑤ how often the letters appeared than how long they were shown

위 지문은 작업기억에 저장되는 언어기반 정보들이 시각적 자극보다 청각적 자극의 영향을 더 많이 받는다는 내용입니다. 부정확하게 기억된 정보를 청각적 유사성에 의존하여 기억을 인출한다고 합니다. 

이 외에도 

When we try to recall something from a category that includes as many instances as “lunch” or “wine,” many memories compete for our attention.     18년 수능 32번

At the same time, they consolidated their own memory of the personal circumstances in which the event took place, an effect known as “flashbulb memory.”  19년 수능 31번

When you begin to tell a story again that you have retold many times, what you retrieve from memory is the index to the story itself.  20년도 9평 31번

기억을 소재로 많은 문제들이 등장하고 있습니다. 

정리하면

'memory'를 소재로 문제가 나올 때 'working memory'와 관련된 경우가 많습니다. 특히 기억용량 한계인 information overload 가 등장한다면 '선택을 충동적으로 하거나 결정을 망설이게 된다' 는 걸 알아두세요. 꼭 해당 용어를 쓰지 않더라도 '선택해야하는 옵션이 너무 많은 상황'이 주어지면 위 현상과 연관지어 생각하는 게 좋습니다. 

P.S. 

information overload가 등장한 EBS 문제

Compounding the difficulty is what ergonomists call information overload, where a leader is overrun with inputs — via e-mails, meetings, and phone calls — that only distract and clutter his thinking.  

ebs 수능특강 영어독해연습 46p 5번

다음 칼럼은 '표면과 이면'을 주제로 다뤄보겠습니다.