Psych 1

[watertank]

memory interference principle: the more you know the harder it is to put new items into or retrieve them from your memory.

a remarkable dilemma follows from this principle: one one hand you want to know about a certain subject as much as possible in order to not miss any relevant information ( e.g. something that might lead to a solution); on the other hand you want to know very little about the subject in order to acquire new knowledge or effectively retrieve knowledge acquired previously.

no wonder socrates thought about all knowledge as recovered from one's immortal soul, not acquired.
SOCRATES: This knowledge will not come from teaching but from questioning. He will recover it for himself.
MENO: Yes.
SOCRATES: And the spontaneous recovery of knowledge that is in him is recollection, isn't it?
MENO: Yes.
SOCRATES: Either then he has at some time acquired the knowledge which he now has, or he has always possessed it. If he always possessed it, he must always have known; if on the other hand he acquired it at some previous time, it cannot have been in this life, unless somebody has taught him geometry. He will behave in the same way with all geometrical knowledge, and every other subject. Has anyone taught him all these? You ought to know, especially as he has been brought up in your household.
MENO: Yes, I know that no one ever taught him.
SOCRATES: And has he these opinions, or hasn't he?
MENO: It seems we can't deny it.
SOCRATES: Then if he did not acquire them in this life, isn't it immediately clear that he possessed and had learned them during some other period?
MENO: It seems so.
SOCRATES: When he was not in human shape?
MENO: Yes.
SOCRATES: If then there are going to exist in him, both while he is and while he is not a man, true opinions which can be aroused by questioning and turned into knowledge, may we say that his soul has been for ever in a state of knowledge? Clearly he always either is or is not a man.
MENO: Clearly.
SOCRATES: And if the truth about reality is always in our soul, the soul must be immortal, and one must take courage and try to discover-that is, to recollect what one doesn't happen to know, or (more correctly) remember, at the moment.

his method of questioning implied systematic destruction of irrelevant information, which allowed him and his subjects recover facts and considerations connected directly to the problem at hand. very similar to michelangelo's notion of removing extra marble to discover the beauty inside the rock.

also, relates to the four waves of problem solving approach.