If you think smart people are very good at remembering the nitty gritty details of each and every thing – think again!
According to recent paper published in the journal Nature, smart people are smart because they are efficient in filtering out unnecessary information and retaining only what is required.
The visual short term memory of an individual is limited to remembering only 3-4 objects simultaneously. Therefore it becomes imperative for the individual to develop an effective mechanism to remember only what is relevant and to discard the rest. Smart individuals have a more efficient mechanism to filter information and to utilize it.
Interestingly the paper also quotes that less smart people may in fact store more information but as most of it is irrelevant it is never put to use making these individuals appear dumb.
Reference – Nature (Neural measures reveal differences in controlling access to working memory – Vogel et al, Nov 24, 2005)
