Short-term Memory

Chunking

Grouping information into meaningful units to hold more of it in short-term memory.

1945, 2001

1 9 4 5 2 0 0 1 is 8 items, near the 7 ± 2 limit. Read as “1945, 2001” it’s 2 chunks. Raw capacity is fixed; what counts as “one item” isn’t.

Expertise is largely extreme chunking in a domain. Chess masters don’t see 30 pieces, they see a handful of familiar configurations.