= Chunking
{disambiguate=psychology}
<Chunking (psychology)> groups separate items into meaningful units for recognizing patterns or using <short-term memory>. Several digits can be treated as one familiar date, for example, so the same number of visible symbols can require different numbers of remembered units. The grouping draws on knowledge in <long-term memory>; inserting spaces alone does not make an unfamiliar pattern meaningful.
<William G. Chase> and <Herbert A. Simon> investigated these units by asking three chess players of differing skill to reconstruct positions and examining pauses and successive glances during reconstruction. The pattern of pieces placed together provided evidence about the structures a player perceived, rather than simply measuring the total number of pieces remembered.<Perception in chess by William G. Chase and Herbert A. Simon>[Cognitive Psychology 4, pp. 55–81; perception and brief-presentation reconstruction tasks]{ref} Expertise can therefore improve performance by changing the representation of the material, without demonstrating an equal improvement in every unrelated <short-term memory> task.
Back to article page
