In this experiment we will examine the scope of our short term memory see how small it is and learn methods to increase it
Equipment
A list of random numbers written in advance from 3 to 12 digits
Someone to participate in the experiment
Experiment procedure
The procedure of the experiment can be seen in the video
Long term memory
Try to think how many things you remember or know Words in your mother tongue and other languages people you know and can recognize how different objects look from all possible angles different pictures stories events smells tastes melodies actions you know how to perform and more It is very difficult to quantify but it is probably tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of memory items.
Human memory is huge in scope but all these things are related to what is called long term memory. This memory itself is divided into subtypes according to the type of information it stores.
Long term memory is indeed very large however we are not really aware of all these memories at every moment only when we retrieve them from memory and bring them to consciousness.
It is a bit like a computer that has a memory device such as a hard drive or flash drive where all our videos software pictures and other files are stored.
Huge in scope.
However all these files are not really available in the computer at every moment.
When we want to run software read a document or watch a video the computer loads them from the long term memory device to available memory it can work with called random access memory or RAM
In this experiment we examined a different type of memory short term memory also called working memory used in daily function when we need to remember something for a very short time. For example when we arrive at a clinic and are told our turn is in room 43 this is a small piece of information used for a few seconds until we reach that room and it is clear there is no need to store it long term
As demonstrated in the experiment and in many experiments worldwide short term memory is limited in scope.
The common rule in psychology and brain research is that the size of human short term memory is seven items plus or minus two.
That is we can remember between five and nine details with the exact number depending on the person the circumstances and the item to remember.
This rule was formulated by the American psychologist Miller in an article written in 1956 and it is still one of the most cited articles in psychology.
If you do not believe this claim just ask others to test you in the experiment if you can remember more than nine numbers without memorizing them and there are such people know your short term memory is above average.
Again do not confuse long term memory is huge and there is no limit to memorizing ten digits of a phone number or even a hundred digits by heart but when doing so we use our long term memory
More recent research disagrees with Miller’s claim seven is not a magic number.
The number of items we can remember short term depends on the type of item. For example people will remember a larger number of meaningful words compared to invented words and also the number of syllables in a word affects memory capacity
Most people will remember only about seven digits or other items in short term memory and will start to get confused with more
Tricks and methods to increase
What is interesting about short term memory is that its scope is only about seven items what exactly the brain defines as an item. It does not have to be a number name or object it can also be a rule. Finding a pattern in the items you want to remember allows increasing short term memory because it reduces the number of items to remember
For example it is easy to remember a 17 digit number 12345678910111213 once you see it is just a sequence from 1 to 13. So we actually need to remember only three items the first number the rule and the last number. Similarly it is possible to create a 12 digit number composed of your birth year and your parents’ years these are three items that can be retrieved from long term memory. Sometimes finding rhymes between words can help reduce the number of items and increase short term memory. Grouping items into categories also helps remember them easily for example instead of remembering the list socks pants tank top you can remember they are all clothes and thus free space in memory for additional items