Memories: Limitations and Opportunities

With this brief portrait of both remembering and forgetting in the human brain, we can turn to the next level of analysis regarding the interplay between what we remember and what we forge. Kosslyn and Koenig (1992, p. 4) refer at this point to a shift from the “wet mind’ (neural) to the “dry mind” (cognitive). An important insight regarding this next level of analysis was offered by George Miller (1956) who wrote a highly influential article about the “magic number seven.” Miller focused on the human limits of memory (this limit being approximately seven items). In order to operate within these highly restricted boundaries, human beings begin to “chunk” things together so that there are still only seven items being retained (though now each item is much bigger and more complex). We find in Miller’s chunking a process that parallels Hebb’s cell assembly (though at a much different level of neural functioning). It is also a process that takes forgetting into account and yields benefits associated with selective memory and abstract thought (which are sadly absent in the minds of the mnemonists).

To get an immediate sense of the way in which the limit of seven works and how we go about dealing with this limitation, I am offering you a memory challenge. Please “remember” the following phone number: 262-2433. I ask you not to write it down. Just retain it in your memory for a short while. I will ask you later in this essay this number. This is hard (given that you are hopefully focusing on the content to be found in the remainder of this essay)). The task of remembering this phone number is a bit easier because several numbers are repeated. The two 33’s can be “chunked”; also, you might be able to remember that this phone number has three “2s” (this is another kind of “chunking’). What if we change the numbers into letters that form a word. We can create a word by transferring numbers on the phone dial to letters. When we do so, a highly memorable word is produced: “COACHED” (2=C, 6=O, 2=A- 2=C, 4=H, 3=E, 3=D). While there is some “slop” in this translation (e.g. the number 2 can represent a range of letters from A to C on the phone dial), the “chunked” word is easier to remember than the individual numbers.

Large Scale Chunking

We can move to an even higher and more impressive example of memory-aided chunking. Large scale chunking is constantly being engaged by pianists, actors – and many other people who have to learn and convey a large amount of information without referring to notes. When learning a piece of music (concerto) or a play, the pianist and actor learns one specific chunk of the score or script. They then learn another chunk and will eventually put the chunks together. Each chunk has become one integrated unit that is solidly in place–though each unit must often be rehearsed.

One of my colleagues was recently learning the very demanding script of The Belle of Amherst. This play offers my colleague a major memory challenge for it is performed with only one actor who must retain and recite a very large script. She had to take on one chunk at a time—rehearsing this chunk many times until it was “locked” into her memory. Then she took on another chunk. Finally, she linked these chunks together. My colleague stayed in a cottage near my home while performing the play at aa nearby community theater. II would watch her repeatedly replay one segment of the play and then move on to a second segment. I have colleagues who are classical pianists. They report operating in a similar manner—building one chunk at a time.

Chunking vs. Literal Recall

The description I have just offered of chunking and the building of a structure for retention of meaningful material stands in direction contrast to the way in which memory was conceived and studying by learning specialists for most of the 20th Century. Memory was being studied by making use of nonsense words and random listings of letters. Though large in number these studies of learning were ill-directed—for we rarely try to remember something that makes no sense.

The closest thing we have to nonsense words and letters are phone numbers – that is why it is hard to remember a phone number—especially if it includes an area code (going beyond the magic number seven). It is only the mnemonist who has the ability to readily store nonsense material – and as I have already noted, Luria’s mnemonist (and I suspect many other mnemonists) play a trick when retaining non-sense material. They transfer it to a sensory form (much as I have suggested you translate the phone number that I gave you to a meaningful word).