Flight Physiology, Short Term Memory Lapse

[kontiki]

My other hobby is folk dancing. The dances we do are not memorized. Couples form long lines. The caller walks you through a series of moves that ultimately progress you and your partner down the line.

The basic moves are common, but no two dances are ever alike, it is very athletic, many of the progressions are complicated. One of the things I like is the challenge of learning the progression in the first minute.

It's not uncommon for experienced hard dancing dancers about 1/3 of they way through the dance to just forget the progression they were successfully cranking out for the last 5-6 minutes. Everyone involved experiences it sooner or later.

My guess it that there is a temporary slip in focus (for flirting or something) at the same time there is less blood to the brain. The dances involve a lot of spinning and I suspect when the blood flow to the brain is temporarily reduced, it easy for this short-term memory lapse to occur.

My question: is there something like this that happens to aerobatic pilots? If so what's it called? Is there a way to prevent it? Anything I can adapt to the dance floor?

 

[bbchien]

Gradual cognitive decline. We all have it.
Welcome to (y)our demographic.

 

[TMetzinger]

My other hobby is folk dancing. The dances we do are not memorized. Couples form long lines. The caller walks you through a series of moves that ultimately progress you and your partner down the line.

The basic moves are common, but no two dances are ever alike, it is very athletic, many of the progressions are complicated. One of the things I like is the challenge of learning the progression in the first minute.

It's not uncommon for experienced hard dancing dancers about 1/3 of they way through the dance to just forget the progression they were successfully cranking out for the last 5-6 minutes. Everyone involved experiences it sooner or later.

My guess it that there is a temporary slip in focus (for flirting or something) at the same time there is less blood to the brain. The dances involve a lot of spinning and I suspect when the blood flow to the brain is temporarily reduced, it easy for this short-term memory lapse to occur.

My question: is there something like this that happens to aerobatic pilots? If so what's it called? Is there a way to prevent it? Anything I can adapt to the dance floor?

Could it be that the brain never commits the stuff to longer-term storage since it's not going to be used again?

I know that when I was singing and sight-reading stuff, I had about 95% accuracy in geting the notes right the first read and about 20% recall... It took repetition to get it into long-term storage. And I was in my teens and twenties at the time, so it wasn't old-age CRS at work. We'd have the same issues whenever somebody would improvise a solo but flub a note, doing a retake to just fix that one note or phrase almost always caused an error elsewhere, until enough repetitions took place. Nowadays with digital recording and unlimited tracks it's a lot easier to just edit together all the "correct" phrases into a single piece.

So I really don't think there's much hope for a technique to remember the sequences you're talking about, since each individual sequence is unique. I bet even the caller, if it's making it up on the fly, wouldn't be able to repeat it exactly.

 

[fgcason]

I know that when I was singing and sight-reading stuff, I had about 95% accuracy in geting the notes right the first read and about 20% recall... It took repetition to get it into long-term storage.

The one thing we do in the theatre for hard to remember sequences (lines or movement or whatever) is to memorize the first line. Repeat 3 times until you basically have it. Then add a second line by starting with the first line. Then do the first second and the new third. (A A A - AB AB AB - ABC ABC ABC - ABCD ABCD ABCD - and on and on) By the time you reach the end, you've etched the first half into permanent memory because they've been run through so many times. At that point, the last lines have to catch up to the same level of memorization which is why you can deadpan the first bit and not know what the second half is. It works quite well..right up to the point you step out on stage with it and can't remember your name even with the script in your hand.

That's one method that works for me. Then there are those rare individuals you want to push into the orchestra pit because they can completely memorize a two hour monologue in about 45 minutes.

 

[TMetzinger]

That's one method that works for me. Then there are those rare individuals you want to push into the orchestra pit because they can completely memorize a two hour monologue in about 45 minutes.

My guitarist roomate was like that - he'd hear something once and be able to play it. Bastard.

 

[denverpilot]

I dropped a large pile of prop "paperwork" once during a scene on stage. I was supposed to be "rushing in" with the results of a highly anticipated report.

My lines disappeared from my head. It was terrifying.

Luckily the scene was also military so a panicked look on a subordinates face in the General's office after scattering paperwork across half the stage and even a few pages down into the audience was correct for the scene.

My fellow thespians did an amazing ad-lib job, "Pick that mess up, Corporal! Is that the report we've been waiting for?"

I stammered through giving the "report" and they acted like they were reading details from the sheets I was picking up, as I cleared the stuff off the stage and beat a hasty retreat with a salute.

Folks later said they thought that was how the script was written.

The next night, the stack of papers was stapled together.