Numbers chunks in short memory - Term Paper Example

College Numbers Chunks in Short Term Memory Introduction Short term memory or sometimes known as the main memory or primary memory is that capacity of being able to hold some amount of information in the mind for a period of time in an active form. The duration that this information can be held is in seconds. Long-term memory on the other hand stores a large amount of memory over a long period time. Various researches have been done in relation to short-term memory and most suggest that transmitter depletion codes the stimuli in short term memory. Chunking is a psychological phenomenon whereby when performing memory tasks, individuals group responses. Serial and free recall is some of the tests where individuals are able to illustrate chunking. This is because in these entire two tests, the individual is expected to produce some items that the he/she had studied before. These items may include words, numbers, syllables and lists just to mention a few. A chunk then becomes the unit of memory that is formed when a group of formed chunks are brought together to form a larger unit. Chunking is the ability to create up such things recursively, hence leading to a hierarchy of memory. Chunking appears to be a unique feature of human short-term memory. This makes data easier to comprehend process and retain in memory. It is a vital tool to check our short-term memory for disadvantages to see if they have any cognitive effects (Miller 19). A numeric or number chunk is a most common example. Assume that digits 3788688 need to be memorized. It will be hard to memories this sequence compared to 2010.The simple explanation to this behavior is the way our brain work on this information. In the former series, we have to memories each numeric as one chunk whereas in the latter series they are worked on as two chunks. The sequence of 2010 is grouped as one chunk each. Therefore, we need less effort to memories this. This grouping of information is triggered by constant repetition. Two smaller chunks if repeated form a single bigger chunk containing information of both smaller chunks. (Bybee, 2010). Miller first introduced this in 1956. Interestingly, he never conducted any conclusive experiments. However, he analyzed various papers by different psychologists and scientism. He wrote his views on judgments and emphasized its disadvantage by the ability to process amount information. He also emphasized the concept of bits of data as an amount of data required to decide between equally likely alternatives (Miller 1956). We process a certain amount of information for any given stimuli. This is known to be a capacity channel and differs negligibly for any stimuli. It was estimated that 2.5 bits of information is processed for a given stimuli and human brain decide between 7 equally likely options using this information. This is well known as the absolute judgment span (Miller 195). Chunks and bits of information This concept is important to understand as it lays down the foundation of our discussion as we go into details. As bits are the constant of absolute judgment, chunk is also a constant for immediate/primary memory. As seen before the span for judgment was about 7 seconds, similarly, after different research and available experimental materials it comes to conclusion that a brain is able to remember 7 chunks at any given time (Miller 1956). This is the span of immediate memory. Apart from number 7 second coincident, there is no known similarity between any two entities and thus should be treated differently. Therefore, it is okay to say that number of items change the span of primary memory whereas the amount of data limits the span of Judgment. Human memory is divided into short term or long-term memory Recoding Let us look at how information is grouped in chunks and know its importance. When we assume, that the number of chunks cannot be reduced as memory span, we increase the amount of information that is present in one chunk so that a bigger chunk containing large amount of data is formed. When we do this the overall information in these seven chunks increase significantly. This might seem to be a difficult explanation and for slow learners it would be a difficult concept to get. Imagine small pieces of mercury, falling out of a broken mercury thermometer, information chunks. I remember merging those pieces together to form a one single piece. What if you can only make seven pieces but of any size and your goal is to use as much mercury (information) as possible. Logically you will grow the size of those seven pieces to as large as possible to accommodate all the mercury. This is exactly how chunking works. It incorporates more information within a limited number of pieces. As we earlier describe that amount of information is called ‘bits’ hence we increase bits per chunk and this process is called recoding under the light of jargon of communication theory (Miller 1956). Our goal is to recode those input codes, which contain many chunks, but with fewer bits per chunk into a new code containing less chunks but more bits per chunk. This recoding can be done in various ways. However, the most elementary method is to group a data and give it a separate new name then registers that in your short-term memory. Therefore, instead of recalling all separate inputs of a data you can recall a combined form under one name. How it works? Sidney Smith conducted an experiment testing the above method of recoding in 1954. A normal individual can recall only nine binary digits. In this experiment, the effect of chunking information on the span of immediate memory or short-term memory was observed. Subjects were introduced to a sequence of 18 binary digits. Normally it is not possible to for any individual to recall such high number of items without error. But Smith recoded the binary numbers by pairing subsequent digits and giving them a new name. Four possible pairs include 00, 01, 10, 11 and they were renamed as 0, 1, 2 and 3 respectively. So now, instead of remembering 18 binary numbers, a sequence of nine was sufficient to recall all of them. Therefore, we can say that they were recorded from a base two arithmetic to a base four arithmetic (Miller 1956). Further, in the experiment binary numbers were recorded in the group of three. Doing so reduced the number sequence from 18 to only six, which were within the short memory span of any normal individual. Subsequently in the experiments the data compressed up to 5 times which significantly reduced the number of item recalled. Smith also presented himself as a subject and could recall up to 40 binary digits using this method. Why chunking? So far, we understood that our brain has limitations in memorizing and making decision at a given instance. Chunking helps us to bypass or at least stretch this limit (Brozo 198). In today’s fast developing world, there is a competition of knowledge and abilities. Therefore, we need to maximize our brain capacity and efficiently increase our decision-making abilities to match this pace. Other important attribute of chunking is that it can flexibly be used on any form of data. Previously we described how it is used on numbers but practically we can replace it with alphabets, words and sentences. Hence, it can prove to be an important tool in learning a language. Language and Short Term Memory Here we will discuss if a native language of any individual has any effect on the capacity of short-term memory. Capacity of remembering any digit depends on the sound of the digit. This brings us to the concept of Phonological loop. Alan Baddeley proposed one of the short-term memory models in 1970. It comprised of three components; Central executive, Visio-spatial sketchpad, and Phonological loop. He argued that central executive controls both other components of this model and is responsible for attention and interface to long-term memory. The span of phonological loop is about 2 seconds, which means that more number of smaller duration digits can be recorded on that loop. Therefore, those languages in which the phonologic duration is short for digits, letters, words or sentences are tend to easier to recall. This is evident when we try to recall monosyllable words and those with multiple syllables. For instance, we may recall a sequence of up to five monosyllable words as compared to three or four multi syllable words. The visual-spatial sketchpad also aids short-term memory but is considered very volatile. Experiments showed that individual could recall up to five items after visual information is displayed. However, this part of short-term memory erodes quickly with time (Jones 2002). Chunking in language learning To learn a second language it is very important that individual develop an automatic level of access to words and syntactic patterns (Heredia 2002). This is the key to develop fluency and accuracy. The problem here is that learning individual words or expanding your vocabulary does not help with fluency. In order to attain that these words are to be repeated in a specific grouped pattern to enhance their accessibility and use. For example, reinforcement may help to magnify and consolidate the meaning of a smaller segment or word but it does not help with combining those segments to form a more complex but informative product. This problem is solved by chunking these words together and recording them in the memory as a whole. When we talk about recognizing pattern we should understand a term called ‘‘collocations’’. These are the combinations of words that appear most frequently together. For example, we mostly say heavy rain and not strong rain. Similarly, tea is mostly said to be strong tea and not powerful tea although both has similar meaning. Therefore, if we understand common occurrence of these words together they can be chunked and thus become easier to remember (Zimmer 2010). Lexical chunk is a broad term, which includes collocations mentioned above. Collocation can be defined as a pair of lexical content words commonly found together. As per this definition, ‘terrible accident’ is a collocation as both words are lexical content but ‘look at’ is not for the fact that it contains only one lexical content word. During recent studies, it has been recognized that native speakers carry a vast bank of these lexical chunks in their memory and hence it was deduced that they should be the fundamentals for learning any language. Children at a very early age are exposed to these lexical chunks. This grouped vocabulary is the key to fluency because they are more efficiently retrieved from the memory bank (Harward 2002). Traditionally, grammar and vocabulary was viewed as separate entities when teaching a secondary language was concerned. Grammar usually deals with the structure of a language while the vocabulary consists of single words. In the orthodox approach, much emphasis was laid on the structure or grammar of a language and learning the single word vocabulary. However, recent studies showed that the native-like combinations of a language is far different from what is achieved by this orthodox method. This has been attributed to the fact that these natives use collocations and lexical chunks in their everyday speaking as well as writing giving it a more natural texture. Hence, Michael Lewis introduced a new approach called lexical approach in 1993. It focuses more on the use of chunks as a main tool to incorporate a language rather than using the classical mode. Although implementing this approach is not very easy for many reasons. Firstly, there are huge numbers of chunks and it is not possible to remember all of them. Secondly, there are other aspects of language that also need to be learned which provide the infrastructure where these chunks can be incorporated. Phonological Short-term memory and language learning Recent studies demonstrated link of phonological short-term memory capacity and ability to learn a foreign language. I have already described phonological loop while discussing the impact of different languages on the span of immediate memory. Let us continue from there and dissect the relationship between that phonological loop and its support of long-term learning of the phonological forms of previously unfamiliar world in the acquisition of foreign language vocabulary. It has been evident that the relationship between short-term phonological memory and long-term memory is reciprocal. Phonological loop capacity increases the ability to learn phonological structure patterns of new words and stored vocabulary in the long-term memory facilitate this loop (Missouri et al 1999). An experiment (Missouri et al 1999) was performed to further investigate this relationship. Forty five students of primary public school in Greece were included in the study. National Test of Onward Repetition used to assess repetitions of English onwards. A Greek version was also formulated to assess the Greek onwards. The result of this experiment confirmed the association of short-term phonological memory capacity on the ability to learn foreign vocabulary. However, interestingly it also outlined that chronological age, nonverbal ability, and time spent to learn that language plays a minimal role (Masoura et al 1999). Noticing The impact of ‘noticing’ is quiet evident in most of the latest literature emphasizing the chunking approach in developing vocabulary. In the older settings, acquisition of vocabulary above elementary level was incidental and was limited to items that present during reading. However, the present researchers argue that certain degree of noticing is required for acquisition to take place. This conscious raising approach for vocabulary enhancement is in line with the chunking technique, which is one form of intentional vocabulary teaching system. It provide with the necessary environment for noticing to take place. Conclusion From all the reviewed literature and experiments it is not difficult to conclude that short-term memory capacity is the limiting factor in learning a new language. However, chunking and applying lexical approach can stretch the limits of our capacity. Also chunking can provide with the medium for propagation of an individual’s vocabulary by providing the most important sequel of words in a compressed format easily assessable with minimal effort enhancing fluency. References Bybee, Joan L. Language, Usage and Cognition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Print. Newell, Allen. Unified Theories of Cognition. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1990. Print. Brozo, William G. "The Beneficial Effect of Chunking on Good Readers' Comprehension of Expository Prose." Journal of Reading. 26.5 (1983): 442-45. Print. Heredia, Roberto R, and Jeanette Altarriba. Bilingual Sentence Processing. Amsterdam: North- Holland/Elsevier, 2002. Print. Harwood, Nigel. "Taking a Lexical Approach to Teaching: Principles and Problems." International Journal of Applied Linguistics. 12.2 (2002): 139-55. Print. Lewis, Michael. The Lexical Approach. Hove: Language Teaching Publications, 1993. Print. Zimmer, Ben. “Chunking”. New York Times 16 Sep. 2010. Masoura, Elvira, and Susan Gathercole. "Phonological Short-Term Memory and Foreign Language Learning." International Journal of Psychology. 34 (1999): 383-388. Print. Read More