Miller observed limits near seven categories or chunks across several immediate-processing tasks.
Miller's 1956 paper observed limits near seven chunks across several immediate-processing tasks, and should not be read as a universal seven-plus-or-minus-two limit on working memory. Modern estimates put central capacity around three to five chunks, and Miller himself called the number a joke about being persecuted by an integer.
In practice
- A phone number read aloud is repeated back in three blocks, and the fourth block is where people ask for it again.
- The design guidance drawn from it is largely unfounded — menu length matters much less than menu organisation, which is Hick–Hyman.
- Possible explanations
- The explanation is capacity: immediate processing holds a limited number of chunks, and chunking is what lets experience raise the amount of material each slot holds.
- In its favour
- The observation of a narrow limit is robust, and chunking remains one of the best-supported ideas in cognitive psychology.
- Against it
- Miller's own paper warned against reading seven as a universal constant, and modern estimates of central capacity are commonly three to five chunks, varying by material and task.
- Standing
- Not a universal working-memory limit; modern estimates of central capacity are commonly around three to five chunks.
- Further reading
- Wikipedia
- Subject
- Psychology & Behavior
- Essay
- A century and a half of measuring the mind