Chapter 2, page 31
communicated to you. Below we will discuss some strategies for increasing the amount of information that
can be stored in the working memory.
Chunking. Chunking is a key method of placing larger amounts of information into working
memory (Gobet & Clarkson, 2004; Miller, 1956). Let’s try recalling another series of digits. But this time,
before you begin, be aware that the digits are dates of U.S. holidays. Keeping this in mind, how many of
the digits can you recall after you read and say them to yourself.
3 / 17 2 / 14 4 / 1 10 / 31 7 / 4 12 / 31
If you know what all these dates represent (Saint Patrick’s Day, Valentine’s Day, April Fool’s Day,
Halloween, Independence Day, and New Year’s Eve), you probably were able to recall most or even all of
these dates. Information processing theorists have shown that when we chunk the numbers into larger
meaningful units, we are more likely to retain more information. In this case, the numbers are chunked into
meaningful dates, allowing you to recall up to 18 digits. However, what if you try to recall 7 dates with
18 digits when the dates are less meaningful to you, such as
5 / 3 4 / 29 2 / 11 3 / 14 11 / 3 11 / 15
These dates are Japanese holidays. If you are very familiar with Japanese holidays, you may do very well
with this list. If some of these dates have a personal meaning for you, you will be able to chunk them in
this way. Otherwise, you will probably be unable to chunk the numbers, and you will probably remember
fewer of the numbers in these dates.
Consider another example of chunking (Bower, 1970, 1972). Read this series of letters to yourself,
one letter at a time, and then try to remember as many as you can.
F BIE SP NMT VNB CDN AU SAF AQ
Now consider how much easier it is to remember the same 22 letters, in the same order, when they are
organized like this:
FBI ESPN MTV NBC DNA USA FAQ
How did you do? In the first case, the unit of information is likely to be the individual letter. Perhaps you
can make some small chunks—some might store “SAF” by thinking of the word safe. But for the most
part, chunking is difficult in the first list. On the other hand, chunking is easy in the second list, as you are
not storing individual letters in working memory; rather, you are storing meaningful acronyms such as
“FBI” as single units.
Automaticity. Chunking is the way in which people are able to place units in working memory that
are large enough to understand whole sentences and more. Automaticity occurs when a process is can be
performed with very little use of working memory. As an example, let’s return to Rachel and the sentence
about lobsters. There are eight words and 37 letters in the first sentence, “Lobsters taste food with hairs
on their legs.” If Rachel is a good reader who can decode (decoding refers to determining what a word is
based on the letters in the word), she will not store individual letters in working memory. She will store
larger units of meaning in working memory, such as words or even larger units. There is no definitive way
to determine exactly the size or content of the chunks that individuals form. Perhaps Rachel stores lobster
as one chunk, taste food as a second chunk, hairs on their legs as a third chunk, and with as a fourth
chunk that indicates that tasting food occurs by means of the hairs on the legs. This means that she still
has working memory capacity left over. This possibility is shown in Figure 2.2. Rachel is able to store all