Chunking Research

Learning is Organized by Chunking (Herman Buschke 1976)

Name: Arash Zargar Balayejam

Metric: WEK110706

Course: Cognitive Science (WAES2107)

Dr. Unaizah Hanum Binti Obaidellah

Session 2013/2014 Semester 2

Introduction

Chunking is a term in psychology which discuss about the process of chunking and grouping series of items during a memory task performing. Human has a limited short term memory capacity in free recall task. Miller discussed that human can convert small list of items (such as words) to larger pieces of information such as sentences (chunks), and also make relation between them (Miller, 1956). This phenomenon helps human to memorize better in short term memory, for example, if a person is able to retrieve 5 to 8 items in natural free recall, in different retrieval trials can identify group of items that recur together, which could extend list of items to 20. Repeating trials of actual chunks and their organization in verbal learning shows that items are grouped in different smaller chunks.

Many experiments has been done on learning and chunking by various researchers from Tulving (1962) to Martin and Noreen (1974), but most of researches has be focused on retrieval free call demonstration and measuring the amount of organization. This paper has new viewpoint to the chunking and organization of chunks (Buschke, 1976). The idea is to identify the actual chunks in each trial of learning and to show what really happening during random free recall learning. In order to do that, Buschke show actual clusters on each attempt. The identification of chunks needs comparison of all available chunks in each trial. The experiment analyzed manually without using any computer program.

Methods

The method used is to present a ...

... middle of paper ...

...t the relative nature of chunks ordering, also retrieval after week delay stay the same as before and chunks organization after week is less than previous trials. Selecting a 12-years boy was wise decision, because at last the subject retrieved similar number of items that adults retrieved. This experiment finds that, it is possible that related items from same chunks presented in related style because of sequential nature of verbal free recall.

References

Buschke, H. (1976). Learning is organized by chunking. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 313–324.

CERMAK, G., SCHNORR, J., & BuscHKE, H. (1970). Word recognition as a function of spelling direction during study and test. Psychonomic Science, 127-128.

Miller, G. (1956). Psychological Review. The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on our Capacity for Processing Information, 81-97.