Learning Strategies
Chunking
Memorise the following number sequence. Now close the section in which the numbers are displayed and write down the sequence from memory. How many numbers can you remember?
3110140209112512911
Take another look at the following number sequence and try to learn it by heart. When you are ready, close the section in which the numbers are displayed and try to remember as many numbers as possible.
31/10 14/02 09/11 25/12 911
Method
Which number sequence did you find easier to memorise? It’s more than likely you remembered more numbers from sequence II – but why is that?
Both sequences contain the same numbers in the same order. The only difference is the way they are arranged.
Whereas sequence I simply lists the numbers one after the other, sequence II groups them into meaningful units:
31/10 – Halloween
14/02 – Valentine’s Day
09/11 – Nine eleven, the day of the attack on the Twin Towers in New York City
25/12 – Christmas Day
911 – Emergency services number in the USA
Quelle [1]
The fact that you found it easier to remember sequence II than sequence I is attributable to the limited capacity of our short-time memory. As a general rule, it can be assumed that the average person is able to remember around 7 ± 2 chunks of information.
The nature of each chunk of information is nevertheless variable. To take the above example, it is possible to either see each digit as an individual chunk (as in sequence I) or group digits together to form larger chunks such as the date of Halloween, Valentine’s Day and so on (sequence II).
This is comparable with a situation in which there are seven seats left on a bus and you are responsible for allocating them. You could decide to give the seats to people who are wearing a t-shirt and trousers (= limited information per chunk). But you might prefer to select people who are wearing not just a t-shirt and trousers, but also multiple jackets, gloves and a woolly hat (= more information per chunk). The number of seats stays the same, but the number of pieces of clothing worn by their new occupants (= amount of information in each chunk) can be varied.