Mind's Limit Found: 4 Things at Once

[Mugu]

Clara Moskowitz LiveScience Staff Writer, LiveScience.com via Yahoo

I forget how I wanted to begin this story. That's probably because my mind, just like everyone else's, can only remember a few things at a time. Researchers have often debated the maximum amount of items we can store in our conscious mind, in what's called our working memory, and a new study puts the limit at three or four.

Working memory is a more active version of short-term memory, which refers to the temporary storage of information. Working memory relates to the information we can pay attention to and manipulate.

Early research found the working memory cut-off to be about seven items, which is perhaps why telephone numbers are seven digits long (although some early telephone dialing started with a two- or three-letter "exchange," often the first letters of a community name, followed by four or five figures, e.g. PEnnsylvania 6-5000). Now scientists think the true capacity is lower when people are not allowed to use tricks like repeating items over and over or grouping items together.

"For example, when we present phone numbers, we present them in groups of three and four, which helps us to remember the list," said University of Missouri-Columbia psychologist Nelson Cowan, who co-led the study with colleagues Jeff Rouder and Richard Morey. "That inflates the estimate. We believe we're approaching the estimate that you get when you cannot group. There is some controversy over what the real limit is, but more and more I've found people are accepting this kind of limit."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20080428/sc_livescience/mindslimitfound4thingsatonce;_ylt=Aigcso1f4RukZLB3HkBbq5ms0NUE">Complete article

[shraby]

1. I'm calling bullshit on this

I remember more things than that when when I go to the library, then to the post office, the bank then to the grocery store. Since phone numbers are mentioned, when living in a small town, I could remember almost everyone's phone number unless they moved away and a short while after they moved, I forgot what it was.

[Bill McBlueState]

3. That's why they did a study

The idea is that by testing a large number of people in a controlled environment, you learn more than you would from anecdotal evidence alone.

[babydollhead]

2. cells have genetic memories.

I like to think about the genetic memory in my cells. It makes me feel part of something bigger, and smaller