Summary
Not all the knowledge required for precise behavior has to be in the head. Author mentions that the information is available in the world and usually great precision is not required to remember the information. Natural and cultural constraints are present. Whenever information needed to do a task is readily available in the world, the need for us to learn it diminishes. It is a general property of memory that we store only partial descriptions of things to be remembered. Various constraints reduce the amount that must be learned to a reasonable quantity.
Memory can be divided into short term memory and long term memory. Memory can be categorized into - memory for arbitrary things, memory for meaningful relationships and memory through explanation. A meaningful relationship can be indispensable, but you have to have the right one. Mental models simplify learning, in part because the details of the required behavior can be derived when needed. They can be invaluable in dealing with unexpected situations.
Discussion
I think, in this chapter, the author does a wonderful job of explaining how we think we remember some things but we don't really remember them completely. We just remember links to the subject that we are supposed to remember so that when needed we can follow the links to access the required data. This is like maintaining a pointer to the information needed rather than having the entire information in the memory.
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