Chunking (psychology) - Short Term Memory

Short Term Memory

As George Miller's article stated, humans can retain five to nine pieces of information in their short term memory. The amount of information increases when placed in chunks, which allows short term memory to store about four "chunks." The short term memory processes and stores information for about twenty to thirty seconds. After this, information is either committed to long term memory, or lost all together. Chunking is a way to increase the capacity of short term memory.

Read more about this topic:  Chunking (psychology)

Famous quotes containing the words short, term and/or memory:

    “Once it chanced that I stood in the very abutment of a rainbow’s arch, which filled the lower stratum of the atmosphere, tinging the grass and leaves around, and dazzling me as if I looked through colored crystal. It was a lake of rainbow light, in which, for a short while, I lived like a dolphin. If it had lasted longer it might have tinged my employments and my life.”
    —Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    “We now demand the light artillery of the intellect; we need the curt, the condensed, the pointed, the readily diffused—in place of the verbose, the detailed, the voluminous, the inaccessible. On the other hand, the lightness of the artillery should not degenerate into pop-gunnery—by which term we may designate the character of the greater portion of the newspaper press—their sole legitimate object being the discussion of ephemeral matters in an ephemeral manner.”
    —Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1845)

    “For my name and memory I leave it to men’s charitable speeches, and to foreign nations, and the next ages.”
    —Francis Bacon (1561–1626)