Wax Tablets of the Mind: Cognitive Studies of Memory and Literacy in Classical Antiquity (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780415149839)

In this volume, the author argues that literacy is a complex combination of various skills, not just the ability to read and write: the technology of writing, the encoding and decoding of text symbols, the interpretation of meaning, the retrieval and display systems which organize how meaning is stored and memory. The book explores the relationship between literacy, orality and memory in classical antiquity, not only from the point of view of antiquity, but also from that of modern cognitive psychology. It examines the contemporary as well as the ancient debate about how the writing tools we possess interact and affect the product, why they should do so and how the tasks required of memory change and develop with literacy's increasing output and evoking technologies.

Author: Jocelyn Penny Small
ISBN-10: 0415149835
ISBN-13: 9780415149839
Publisher: Routledge
Language: English
Published: 09/04/1997
Pages: 396
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.55lbs
Size: 9.52h x 6.44w x 1.11d