Theos-Talk Archives (December 2003 Message tt00176)

kpauljohnson wrote:
> Psychologists generally agree that the capacity of short-term memory 
> is 7 items (or chunks of information)-- with lots of caveats and 
> exceptions but still, by and large seven. Here's a link to a recent 
> discussion of it:
> http://www.gpc.peachnet.edu/~bbrown/psyc1501/memory/stm.htm
Well, this is certainly useful. While it continues to confirm that the 
number 7 is humanocentric, at least it shows that there are physical 
reasons for this, outside of the seven observable geocentric planets.

> This is why telephone numbers have seven digits-- people would have 
> a much harder time remembering more. 
Although that may be partially training, as well. When I am giving 
someone a long number to copy down which is not already broken into 
parts, I often do it in the form of 3-4 combinations.

Bart