All evalutation/discussion points are written in a PEE paragraph (green - strength, blue - discussion, red - criticism)
The size of the chunk affects how many chunks you can remember. Simon (1974) found that people had a shorter memory span for larger chunks, such as 8 word phrases, than smaller chunks, such as one-syllable words. This continues to support the view that STM has a limited capacity and refines our understanding.
The capacity of STM is not the same for everyone. Jacobs also found that recall (digit span) increased steadily with age; eight year olds could remember an average of 6.6 digits whereas the mean for 19 year olds was 8.6 digits. This age increase might be due to changes in the brain capacity, and/or to the development of strategies such as chunking. This suggests that the capacity of STM is not fixed and individual differences may play a role.
One limitation of Miller's research is that he may have overestimated the capacity of STM. For example, Cowan (2001) reviewed other research and concluded that the capacity for STM was only about four chunks. This suggests that the lower end of Miller's estimate (five items) is more appropiate than seven items.
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