Actually, it was Paul Monfils who suggested the restriction of topic to
genus = common name in the case of Nautilus, not my feeble memory. But the
topic of memory is a rich one.
I used to give a slide show of close-up photographs of shells. Harry Lee
identified about 70% of them. No one else has ever gotten more than 50%. I
would nominate Harry as the reigning champion of extemporaneous identification.
In my prime I could identify more than 5,000 species on sight. I spend too
much time at a computer these days, so I can't identify as many species as I
used to. Sometimes I can reel off possibilities--it's this, this or this,
even if I can't remember which. Even if I can't remember the name at all, I
can often walk straight to the drawer in the collection and find the
species. And on two occasions someone has shown me a shell and as I opened
my mouth to say "I don't know", I said the name instead.
I sometimes go Israeli folk dancing, and it's fascinating to watch the
different ways that people learn. Some memorize the music first, others
memorize the motions, and others (such as me) memorize a description of the
steps. After I've just learned a new dance, I often don't recognize the
music. I have to stare at people's feet to figure out the steps until it
dawns on me that I know the dance. But once I've become familiar with the
dance, the verbal description fades and I remember more by the music and the
motions. Beginners have to follow behind someone to learn a new dance,
whereas experienced dancers can follow someone opposite them across the room
by mirror-imaging the steps in their heads.
I actually had testing for various aptitudes as a teenager. My memory for
words and numbers is extremely high, my memory for music is purely average.
My visual memory is only slightly better than average, at least in the
particular test they gave, which was to state what differences there were,
if any, between two pictures viewed a few seconds apart. I don't have a
photographic memory--I have what might be called a synthetic memory. I don't
generally remember what an individual shell looks like, I remember what the
species looks like. I wonder if there's a difference in the way the memories
of lumpers and splitters work?
The debate about using common versus scientific names on Conch-L also comes
down to an issue of memory. Many subscribers have never seen some of the
scientific names before, and never heard them pronounced. Most words we
learn by hearing them. Scientific names are learned by seeing them, unless
you work in an environment such as a museum where you are likely to hear
them. That's why common names are easier to learn at first--at least the
components of the name are usually words that one has heard before.
Scientific names are not inherently harder than common names--look at little
kids learning the names of dinosaurs (which they hear all the time). As one
gets more used to scientific names, they become familiar and the common
names start fading. So while we dance with shells, let's use both names so
that everyone can learn the steps.
Gary
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Gary Rosenberg, Ph.D. [log in to unmask]
Malacology & Invertebrate Paleontology gopher://erato.acnatsci.org
Academy of Natural Sciences http://www.acnatsci.org
1900 Benjamin Franklin Parkway Phone 215-299-1033
Philadelphia, PA 19103-1195 USA Fax 215-299-1170
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