Chunking (psychology)

The concept of chunking ( in German sometimes free with " bundling " translated) was introduced in 1956 by George A. Miller. The chunking hypothesis contains statements about the extent of short-term memory span which is 7 ± 2 chunks according to Miller and is genetically determined. Here, the specific content of individual chunks is seen as insignificant for the short-term retention. Thus is the memory span - regardless of stimulus materials such as binary numbers, decimal numbers, letters or words - in about five to nine chunks, while the information content (bits ) of these materials can be very different.

For example, the following composition of letters can be learned only with difficulty: BYGROUPINGITEMSINTOUNITSWEREMEMBERBETTER. In order to facilitate the learning process, we decompose this word braided into individual chunks: BY GROUPING ITEMS INTO UNITS WE REMEMBER BETTER. We now have 8 chunks and are able to give us better memorize this sentence or the initial word braid.

Recent work, however, show that the memory span is dependent lovely. It is, for example, for words than for nonwords ( Hulme et al 1997). The classic paper by Miller is historically significant because its findings show that measures of information-theoretical psychology are not applicable to the measurement of short-term memory span.

Recent research from the University of Missouri ( 2008) let's assume that the capacity of short term memory is significantly lower than that assumed by Miller. Accordingly, you should go out 3-4 chunks. This raises the question of whether you should continue to use the concept of chunking, he is with the number 7 ± 2 associated.