And the Magic Number is... a Joke?

It is right about now that I beg for your forbearance. Because I shall continue with the same train of thought with which I began the previous ‘Blog’.

Why? Because I have that ‘unfinished’ feeling; I am left dissatisfied with the answer, the conclusion seems, somehow, only half of what it should be.

For a start, we must assure ourselves that George Miller had a sense of humour.

Yes, I did say that already but, perhaps, I did not explain sufficiently.

He said that the magic number in our heads, as it relates to cognitive psychology, is seven plus or minus two.

This is a gentle humour of which I am not only a great admirer but also it is something that brings comfort to my soul. It is subtle, it is—I hate to say this, ‘intellectual’!

An illustration is in order.

The wicked witch says to Snow White, “I am going to put you into a deep sleep for an indeterminate period or until you are awoken by... someone who will kiss you on the... somewhere.”

Or

“I shall turn you, Oh, Handsome Prince, into a frog—or some similar species of semi-aquatic reptile.”

The suggestion that a magic number has tolerances is almost lunacy. It is a fascinating concept; I could fall in love with this idea.

This is a thought that trashes every childhood nursery rhyme and faery tale that we have ever heard. “Forever and a day” becomes what? Something considerably less than infinity, for certain!

George Miller also introduced us to a system known as ‘chunking’.

There is a familiarity about this in modern times because previous ideas were to break down our thought processes in to ‘bits’; computer people will now be attracted to this idea.

Chunking is amalgamating ideas into one ‘chunk’ where ‘bits’ were dividing thoughts up into two options.

Example:

Ask a friend to think of a number between, say, one and a hundred. How many questions will you have to ask to arrive at the correct answer?

Using ‘yes/no’ you might break up the questions into, “Is it smaller than fifty?”

The answer will give you the notion that the result is bigger or smaller than fifty. So you go on until you reach the correct digit(s).

Miller decided that using ‘bits’ for psychiatric ideas was too precise. This is because ‘bits’ can be, mathematically, broken down into a scale of ‘bits’ by using something like 2.4 bits where this is closer to the ‘2’ option than the ‘3’ option thus the ideas can be broken down into a scale of 0-9 for accuracy. Finding a number between one and a hundred becomes relatively simple compared to finding, for example, a single word in the dictionary irrespective of the language used.

He turned away from that and used ‘memory units’ that are not precisely divided up into ‘bits’ but are called ‘chunks’. This is much more useful because it is something we can get hold of in our minds, it becomes much more accessible.

From this he developed the idea that memory, especially short-term memory, can be improved by breaking down material into these chunks.

We can, as we saw last time, remember seven unit telephone numbers:

0044-1392-1234567

“But this is more than seven numbers!”

Yes. It is. But. If you are familiar with the codes it is memorable:

0044 is United Kingdom code. If you know that you can remember that as one ‘chunk’.

1392 is the code for Exeter (I think!). If you know that you can remember that without tacking it on to the main number. If you live in Exeter you can discard those first two chunks entirely and focus on the last one.

The number 1234567 is decidedly memorable because it is in numerical order and that makes it easy to remember. It may be that the 12^th of March, 1945, is a date you associate with something in particular so those digits can be remembered and that only leaves ‘67’ to be stored.

[NB: In the US that would be January 23^rd.]

George Miller really made sense of things that were already known but not described or rationalised.

These thoughts and ideas about chunking were really based on the concept of using mnemonics—memory aids. This is when you clench your fists and hold them up so that the knuckles stick out; you now name them from the left ‘January, February, March...’ In the middle are July and August—both of them 31 day months. Thus you have a memory aid to help you remember how many days in which particular month. Of course, your second knuckle is not actually extra low!

Chunking can help you remember facts and figures but it cannot help you to analyse or synthesise facts; that much is up to you.

I shall leave you with this thought:

8, 4, 5, 9, 1, 7, 6, 3, 2.

Where does the ‘0’ fit in this sequence?

You will not be able to remember the sequence because it is a list of more than seven digits. Remembering it will not help you analyse it and synthesise a solution.

Unless you are magic.

[George Miller died last year at the age of 92. His was a brilliant mind and he was a lovely man. The World is a lesser place for his leaving it.]