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Posted by JBfromBrainStormWFO
Jul 27, 2011 at 11:13 PM
Alexander,
I understand that the topic of cognition is quite complex, and I am not making any claims about structuring lists, writing longtext documents or designing layouts.
I am saying that simultaneous comprehension of the interconnections between all child entries of an outline’s parent entry is limited to about 7 brief items, or less.
This is a general rule; obviously there are places where you would make exceptions.
The main fallacy of the misapplications you linked to is that most situations do not require simultaneous apprehension. It is perfectly acceptable to scan through a document serially, rather than attempting to comprehend its entirety at once. However, when rapidly structuring an outline, we need to immediately comprehend the entirety of the “small picture” at each layer, so that the “big picture” can automatically build itself with minimal mental exertion.
I find that 7 is the practical limit for this, and often I prefer 6 or 5.
The rule of 7 does refer to an experimentally verified limit of human mental capacity; it is just that cognition in practical situations has many ways of getting around this limitation, so trying to apply a rule of 7 naively as a general rule for designing everything is quite stupid.
As you can see, I am not just talking about short term memory, the capacity to store and recall, but also the capacity to comprehend as an interconnected whole. The visuo-spatial analogue would be thinking of how seven moving parts interact in an engineering design.
Furthermore, the last link you provided claims the number is even lower, 3 or 4. Perhaps this is true, but that is irrelevant since we do not have to remember by brute force when constructing an outline in BrainStormWFO; the text is remembered for us on the screen. We need only comprehend the interrelationships, i.e. ensure our categories are properly divided.
I think 3 or 4 is too simplistic for most people; 5 or 6 is where I’m most comfortable.
Posted by Alexander Deliyannis
Jul 28, 2011 at 08:37 PM
JB,
I wrote:
[From the presentation: ?Note that BrainStormWFO ‘auto-hoists’. This means that you are always focused on just one layer of the outline. This helps your brain relax, since you can only think about 7 items simultaneously anyway.?
I don?t intend to elaborate on this discussion, or this specific topic, I am just posting the links below for reference:...]
You wrote (here http://www.brainstormsw.com/thinkerlog/the-magic-rule-of-7-moronic-myth-or-useful-rule-of-thumb/ )
“Alexander Deliyannis objects to a portion of the BrainStormWFO sales page:”
I’ll try to phrase this as politely as possible: I have written in this here forum on Brainstorm too many times to remember; most times I have praised the software and/or explained its functionality to new users or interested inquirers. Not once do I recall having had my postings copied to the new Brainstorm’s log—which is fine, because here is the place they were meant to be posted.
And now I post _as_reference_ a few links and I find that this has been quoted and interpreted elsewhere, completely out of context. OK, I know this is the internet, but I’ve always found outlinersoftware.com (and outliners.com prior to this) an oasis of civilised dialogue.
As I noted, I do not intend to elaborate on the particular issue. I often post links and updates here _for_reference_ i.e. in the context of a related discussion; see for example http://www.outlinersoftware.com/messages/viewm/9545 Such a posting does not imply endorsement or rejection of the particular information.
I have learned a great deal in my many (many) years in this forum, as I am sure most others have. We do this by maintaining an open outlook for relevant (and often conflicting) information and differing opinions, not by rushing to argue against whatever we _think_ the other fellow is saying.
Joseph (I understand that’s what J stands for) _please_remove_ from Thinkerlog the reference to my name and supposed opinion. As for your own text, I’m sure you can alter it so that it doesn’t rely on the particular incentive; the links I mentioned are public and easily searchable, and you may very well post them and comment on them.
Once the said reference has been removed from Thinkerlog, I will ask the good Chris to remove this posting, and this momentary lapse of communication will be sent into oblivion.
Posted by JBfromBrainStormWFO
Jul 28, 2011 at 09:14 PM
This forum has no presumption of anonymity or confidentiality. Everything is accessible without login and indexed by Google.
I have removed the link to your post and your name from the post. I don’t feel courtesy requires me to delete the post itself, since the quote is now anonymous, as per your desire for privacy.
I was mistaken in thinking that you wrote under your full name because you had no compunctions about having your opinions publicly discussed. Perhaps people are responding via email which auto-includes their full names. I shall be careful about that from now on here. My reason for giving your user name was to provide fair attribution for the quotation.
In any case, my post conceded that you were right to raise an objection to my facile terminology. Nevertheless, I intend to keep using it, for brevity and simplicity.
Posted by Gary Carson
Jul 29, 2011 at 01:04 AM
“Note that BrainStormWFO ?auto-hoists?. This means that you are always focused on just one layer of the outline.”
This was the one feature of Brainstorm that I didn’t like and it ended up aggravating me so much that I switched to NoteMap. Personally, I want to be able to control how much information I can see at one time. The more flexibility, the better. With NoteMap, I can hoist one topic if I want to focus on that section, or I can display ALL the topics and subtopics, or just some of them. Overall, I liked Brainstorm a lot, but this auto-hoisting thing was just too restrictive. That’s just me, though. Your mileage may vary.
Posted by Alexander Deliyannis
Jul 29, 2011 at 06:21 AM
@JB I have no desire for anonymity. Just about everything I post on the web purposefully includes my full name. I stand behind my opinions.
My objection for your posting was that you interpreted a reference as an opinion, and used it as a starting point for your own musings (which you are very well entitled to). I believe I made this clear further above, but YMMV.
Thanks for the quick reaction.