The effect of chunking on memory recall in STM.

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Psychology

Chunking

Abstract

In this report I have investigated Miller’s chunking theory and whether that increases the amount of information that can be stored in the short term memory.

The aim of this experiment is to investigate whether chunking does improve the amount of memory the short term memory can hold.  The hypothesis is in a test of short term memory recall involving 10 participants who had to remember and recall 5 chunked mobile phone numbers and 5 un-chunked mobile phone numbers. Participants who used the chunking method will score higher than participants who didn’t use the chunking method. My research method is an experiment. I was able to accept my hypothesis and as a result I can say that Ebbinghaus was in fact wrong in saying that the short term memory can only hold six or seven pieces of information because with the chunking method it can hold more than that. So Miller was right the short term memory can hold 7+/-2 pieces of information. Generally people find information easier to remember if it is in smaller chunks rather than great streams of information.

Background information

Erika Cox wrote that memory has three main processes. Registration is where the sense organs identify information and enter it into the memory system. Storage is the process by which information is kept in the memory and finally retrieval is the process by which information in memory can be recovered.

Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968,1971) developed the multi-store memory model. This is  made up of the sensory memory, short term memory and long term memory. Firstly information is detected by the senses and entered into the sensory memory and can be kept here if rehearsed. If we attend to this information it is then entered into the short term memory which According to Miller can hold 7 +/- 2 items and can hold the information unrehearsed for up to 30 seconds. If that information is then rehearsed it can then be entered into the long term memory. If rehearsal does not occur than the information is forgotten

Long before Atkinson and Shiffrin developed the multi-store memory modal Ebbinghaus (1885) maintained that the short term memory is limited to six or seven pieces of information.

Miller (1956) disagreed with this. He developed a chunking method. Miller having reviewed earlier studies of the short term memory said that it could hold 7 +/- 2 pieces of information. So Miller said that it can hold between five and nine pieces of information. The short term memory can hold a certain number of slots in which items can be stored. Miller suggested that the amount of information held in each slot could be increased by chunking the information.

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For example if you had this set of letters – QPALZMWOSKXNEID – Miller would say that 15 letters is too much for the 7 +/- 2 slots of short term memory to hold. But if we chunk the letters into smaller groups – QPA  LZM  WOS  KXN  EID – it gives five chunks of information which is within the range of the short term memory.

In summary Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968,1971) introduced the idea of the multi-store memory modal with its three main processes. Much earlier than this Ebbinghaus discovered that the short term memory could hold six or ...

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