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In his article, Miller discussed a coincidence between the limits of one-dimensional absolute judgment and the limits of short-term memory. In a one-dimensional absolute-judgment task, a person is presented with a number of stimuli that vary on one dimension (e.g., 10 different tones varying only in pitch) and responds to each stimulus with a corresponding response (learned before).
Short-term memory. Short-term memory (or " primary " or " active memory ") is the capacity for holding a small amount of information in an active, readily available state for a short interval. For example, short-term memory holds a phone number that has just been recited. The duration of short-term memory (absent rehearsal or active maintenance ...
George A. Miller suggested that the capacity of the short-term memory storage is about seven items plus or minus two, also known as the magic number 7, [2] but this number has been shown to be subject to numerous variability, including the size, similarity, and other properties of the chunks. [3]
George Armitage Miller discovered the short-term memory can only hold 7 (plus or minus two) things at once. [4] The information here is also stored for only 15–20 seconds. The information stored in the short-term memory can be committed to the long-term memory store. There is no limit to the information stored in the long-term memory.
Miller wrote how short-term memory only has the ability to process or hold seven, plus or minus two items at a time, which then expires after roughly 30 seconds. [2] This is due to short-term memory only having a certain number of "slots" in which to store information in. [2] Short term memory allows us to remember 7-8 sections of information. [8]
While short-term memory seemed to be limited, its limits were not known. In 1956, Miller put a number on that limit in the paper "The magical number seven, plus or minus two". He derived this number from tasks such as asking a person to repeat a set of digits, presenting a stimulus and a label and requiring recall of the label, or asking the ...
The digit-span test is a perfect example of a measurement for classically defined short-term memory. Essentially, if one is not able to encode the 7 plus or minus two items within a few minutes by finding an existing association for the information to be transferred into long-term memory, then the information is lost and never encoded. [22]
His experimental results suggested that humans are generally able to hold only seven plus or minus two units of information in short-term memory. [citation needed] In 1973 Simon and Chase were the first to use the term "chunk" to describe how people might organize information in short-term memory. [10]