3 ms·

Additionally, human beings depend strongly upon spatial orientation. Printed materials dovetail with this. Many recount being able to recall information in pa

Additionally, human beings depend strongly upon spatial orientation. Printed materials dovetail with this. Many recount being able to recall information in part based upon its location within a printed text. IIRC, there was... I think it was a lengthy New Yorker piece, a number of years ago, that went into this. Including the "messy" professor's/researcher's office, until one has a conversation there with them and observes them quickly referencing all sorts of material based upon where they place it -- throughout the office and within specific piles. I wonder whether VR technology will enable us to better engage this in the digital landscape.

viraptor 11y ago
That sounds like poor man's tagging solution where location=tag. A better solution would be a global index: say "standard c99" and you'll get the document you want. It's better than physical location, because additional tags can narrow down the results to specific pages.
snogglethorpe 11y ago
For many words, I actually remember the location on the page, and the page's location in the book, and the book, where I first learned it! [I usually don't remember the exact page number, but some sort of general sense of the position in the book.] With a kindle book, I've found this effect to be much weaker, and for unpaged ebooks (e.g. many free books in html form), it's almost non-existant. It's important to me, at least, because this effect is one way I manage to recall the meaning of words I only half-remember. Maybe it sounds weird, but I think of the general concept I'm trying to remember, then the image of the page floats into view, and ... ok maybe it is weird. ><
- douche 11y ago
  I do the exact same thing. Glad I'm not the only one with a strongly visual memory that works that way. Incidentally, this may be one advantage of PDFs over other formats. Responsiveness be damned, deterministic paging is also an important book property.

viraptor 11y ago

That sounds like poor man's tagging solution where location=tag. A better solution would be a global index: say "standard c99" and you'll get the document you want. It's better than physical location, because additional tags can narrow down the results to specific pages.

snogglethorpe 11y ago

For many words, I actually remember the location on the page, and the page's location in the book, and the book, where I first learned it! [I usually don't remember the exact page number, but some sort of general sense of the position in the book.] With a kindle book, I've found this effect to be much weaker, and for unpaged ebooks (e.g. many free books in html form), it's almost non-existant. It's important to me, at least, because this effect is one way I manage to recall the meaning of words I only half-remember. Maybe it sounds weird, but I think of the general concept I'm trying to remember, then the image of the page floats into view, and ... ok maybe it is weird. ><

douche 11y ago
I do the exact same thing. Glad I'm not the only one with a strongly visual memory that works that way. Incidentally, this may be one advantage of PDFs over other formats. Responsiveness be damned, deterministic paging is also an important book property.