So, two days have passed and there has been no response to
my post below. Now, I'm kind of curious as to why since the
original poster asked about the magical number 7. Cowan
and others have argued for the magical 4 (+/- 1) and one
can add in the process of subsidizing into the mix.
So, no opinions or responses, not even on the part of the
original poster? Enough time has passed for people to
read the sources that I've linked to, so folks should know
I'm not blowing smoke. So what is going on? An incredible
decrease in intellectual curiosity during the summer months?
Too busy binging TV watching? Just curious.
-Mike Palij
New York University
m...@nyu.edu
---------- Original Message -------------
On Mon, 22 Aug 2016 13:22:53 -0700, Mike Palij wrote:
Many people in the field follow the research of Nelson Cowan
who has argued that the "Magical Number" is actually 4
(range 3-5) and not seven. This is hardly news as he laid
out his argument for this position in 2001. The reference
for this article is:
Cowan, N. (2001). The magical number 4 in short-term memory:
a reconsideration of mental storage capacity. The Behavioral
and brain sciences, 24(1), 87-114.
The abstract for the above is:
|Abstract:
|Miller (1956) summarized evidence that people can remember
|about seven chunks in short-term memory (STM) tasks. However,
|that number was meant more as a rough estimate and a rhetorical
|device than as a real capacity limit. Others have since suggested
|that there is a more precise capacity limit, but that it is only three
|to five chunks. The present target article brings together a wide
variety
|of data on capacity limits suggesting that the smaller capacity
|limit is real. Capacity limits will be useful in analyses of
information
|processing only if the boundary conditions for observing them
|can be carefully described. Four basic conditions in which chunks
|can be identified and capacity limits can accordingly be observed
|are: (1) when information overload limits chunks to individual stimulus
|items, (2) when other steps are taken specifically to block the
|recoding of stimulus items into larger chunks, (3) in performance
|discontinuities caused by the capacity limit, and (4) in various
|indirect effects of the capacity limit. Under these conditions,
|rehearsal and long-term memory cannot be used to combine
|stimulus items into chunks of an unknown size; nor can storage
|mechanisms that are not capacity limited, such as sensory memory,
|allow the capacity-limited storage mechanism to be refilled
|during recall. A single, central capacity limit averaging about four
|chunks is implicated along with other, noncapacity-limited sources.
|The pure STM capacity limit expressed in chunks is distinguished
|from compound STM limits obtained when the number of separately
|held chunks is unclear. Reasons why pure capacity estimates fall
|within a narrow range are discussed and a capacity limit for the
|focus of attention is proposed.
A copy of the article and responses may be obtained from:
http://langint.pri.kyoto-u.ac.jp/ai/intra_data/NobuyukiKawai/Kawai-Matsuzawa-Magical_number_5_in_a_chimpanzee.pdf
One might also want to read the following:
Cowan, N., Morey, C., & Chen, Z. (2007). The legend of the magical
number seven. Tall tales about the brain: Things we think we know
about the mind, but ain't so, ed. S. Della Sala, 45-59.
A copy of the manuscript is available on ResearchGate; see:
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Candice_Morey/publication/255060875_The_Legend_of_the_Magical_Number_Seven/links/00b495386e10a6be21000000.pdf
Cowan also published a book titled "Working Memory Capacity" that
originally has a 2005 copyright date but Google Books has it as 2012.
One can preview parts of the book at:
https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=4nx5AgAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=%22nelson+cowan%22+%22magic+number%22&ots=Vs9WTm5zjw&sig=sozwsn8kBmMprA9zfKuyKKByXyY
Finally, one might also want to take a look at the following:
Cowan, N. (2015). George Miller's magical number of immediate
memory in retrospect: Observations on the faltering progression of
science. Psychological review, 122(3), 536.
A copy of this can be read (in HTML) on the following website:
http://europepmc.org/articles/pmc4486516
The original purpose of the Miller's "Magical Number 7" paper was
to determine whether "immediate memory" or "short-term memory"
could be measured in the Information Theory measure of "bits"
(yep, binary digits, like used in computers and communications).
The first part of Miller's Psych Review paper shows that one *can*
use bits to measure the amount of information in bits that is
processed on "absoluted identification tasks" (i.e., a person has
to make a specific response like a button push to a specific
stimulus; as the number of stimuli increases, the number of responses
increases and accuracy breaks down at a certain number of bits,
implying a limited channel capacity). Miller argued that the process
of "recoding" or "chunking" made the use of bits irrelevant because
the size of the chunk appears to be unlimited (not entirely clear in
1956 but it is clear that this is pretty much true today -- just ask
anyone who has participated in the "memory Olympics" or read
Joshua Foer's "Moonwalking with Einstein"). Miller chose the
number 7 (+/- 2) as one possible memory limit for ordinary folks
(which is comparable to the forward digit span of "normal" people).
Cowen has tried to show that if you control for recoding and
other factors, the number of chunks appears to be 4 (+/- 1).
Again, this is for certain types of materials that are processed
in certain ways -- many factors can either reduce or increase
it to (naively) unbelievable amounts. The Atkinson-Shiffrin model
helped to reinforce the magic number 7 but Baddeley's working
memory model mucked things up because of the availability of
different storage areas (i.e., phonological loop, visual spatial
sketchpad, etc.) and how the central executive manages the
flow of information and its processing. Cowan tries to make
all of this clear but the memory models we learned long ago
might be difficult for some to given up. YMMV.
-Mike Palij
New York University
m...@nyu.edu
On Mon, 22 Aug 2016 07:57:28 -0700, Jim Clark wrote:
Hi
I'm not up to date on the latest views about STM or Working Memory. With
respect to the 7 figure, however, I know from my culture class that this
is very malleable across cultures. For example, languages that have
shorter names for numbers have much larger STM capacities than languages
that have longer names. Probably has to do with speed with which person
can cycle through the list of to-be-remembered items. Other similar
findings exist (e.g., on word
length).
-----Original Message-----
On Monday, August 22, 2016 9:08 AM, Michael Ofsowitz wrote:
Before I go back into hiding, does anyone know whether it's still
considered
meaningful to describe STM capacity in a way that leads to variations on
Miller's magic number? Or is that passé, complicated by the myriad
components
of memory and attention processes that make fluid experience possible?
I (we) still teach the magic number at the intro level, or at least the
gist of it, but I often wonder which part of the story it tells. Did
Baddeley or anyone ever attempt to measure the capacity of the episodic
buffer, or the capacity of the visuo-spatial sketchpad? If so, is there
a quick summary of the findings?
Does a person engaged in a phonological STM task (like reciting a list
of nonsense syllables, or chunking a couple of thoughts) temporarily
suspend visual awareness? (Obviously not, but so much of visual
awareness gets tied to
verbal-dependent interpretation.) What about self-awareness? (Is that
suspended?) How many numbers do these parts add up to?
Is the idea of a magic number relevant only to verbalizations (or
verbalizable
experience)? A Homo sapiens specialty, perhaps?
I don't mean to stray too far from the central idea, but that central
idea seems to get complicated very quickly... so what do you - those of
you who know
more about it - teach as key elements of ST/working memory capacity?
(Undergrad, intro or even intro to cog psy.)
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