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Subject:Re: 7 plus or minus 2 From:"Nagai, Paul" <pnagai -at- VISA -dot- COM> Date:Mon, 28 Jul 1997 15:21:44 -0700
>geoff said:
> I've seen several mentions of George Miller's "7 plus or
[I'm quite sure, unless perception, cognition, and memory research has
advanced at an astronomical rate, this research should be mentioned in
any introductory psychology text.]
> minus 2 rule" to justify chunking information into 5-9
> pieces, but this leads me to ask one crucial question that
> I've never seen answered: has anyone actually tested
> Miller's research to confirm that it applies in the context
> of technical writing?
No, it has not. There, now someone can prove a positive (that it has
been studied in context). That should be easier than the alternative :)
Had it been studied, I suspect we would have heard about it in earlier
discussions of how 7+/-2 applies (or doesn't) to writing.
>I have not doubt that his underlying
> principle is sound (i.e., that there's a limit on
> short-term memory), but I haven't seen anything that says
> it is 7 plus or minus 2.
The research examined subjects' ability to remember unmeaningful pieces
of information in the laboratory setting. Testers would read a series of
numbers and ask the subjects to repeat the series. Sometimes it was
letters, words, colors, house-hold objects, etc. Generally speaking,
subjects were able to remember between 5 and 9 elements.
The research also reported that when elements had meaning, the amount of
"raw" data that could be remember grew, but that the number of discrete
"chunks" remained 7+/-2. That is, if three of the numbers were 4-1-5 (my
area code), *I* would treat them as one element or chunk, not three.
Meaningful information presented to subjects knowledgeable in a field
was retained at a much greater rate (this relates to schema/script
theories).
The results of this research can not be directly applied to writing
documents for several reasons which include:
- psych research's definition of short-term memory
- (each reader's) definition of "unmeaningful"
- how the writing sample in question will be used
- length of the interval between reading/recalling
Further complicating this picture are the roles of information stored in
aural and visual registers (assuming short intervals between stimulus
and attempted recall).
The documentation's purpose and form, the information's complexity and
depth, and the audience's knowledge and experience are all far more
important than Miller's 7+/-2 research in deciding how long a list
should be.
------
Paul Nagai
Visa International
pnagai -at- visa -dot- com
415-432-1101
415-432-3678 fax
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