Memory(Chunking)

Aim

To study the impact of chunking on immediate recall of a list of numbers.

Introduction

Memory is an active system that receives information from the senses, puts that information
into a usable form, organizes it as it stores it away, and then retrieves the information from
storage.

The Stage Model of memory was given Atkinson and Shiffrin in 1968. Human memory came
to be seen as a system that processes information in the same way as a computer with its
advent. Both register, store and manipulate large amounts of data and act on the basis of the
outcome of such manipulations. According to the stage model, there are three memory
systems: the sensory memory, the Short-term memory and the Long-term memory. The
sensory memory has a large capacity but, it is of very short duration, i.e. less than a second. It
is a memory system that registers information from each of the senses with reasonable
accuracy. Experiences such as visual after images or reverberations of a sound after it has
ceased are referred to as iconic or echoic sensory registers. The Short-term memory contains
small amount of information that is attended for 30 seconds or less. Information in the STM
is encoded acoustically and unless rehearsed continuously, it may get lost from the STM in
less than 30 seconds. Data that survive the capacity and duration restrictions of the STM
finally enter the long-term memory which has a vast capacity. It has been shown that once
information has entered the long-term memory tore it is never forgotten because it is stored
semantically; in terms of the meaning it carries.

Contemporary formulations envisage long-term memory as consisting of various types; one

major classification within the LTM is that of Declarative and Procedural (nondeclarative)
memories. All information pertaining to facts, names, dates, such as that India became
independent on August 15 1947 or a frog is an amphibian are part of declarative memory.
Procedural memory, on the other hand, refers to memories relating to procedures for
accomplishing various tasks and skills such as how to ride a bicycle, how to make tea or play
basketball. Facts retained in the declarative memory are amenable to verbal descriptions
while contents of procedural memory cannot be described easily. For example, when asked
one can describe how the game of cricket is played but if someone asks how to ride a bicycle,
it may be difficult to narrate. Tulving has proposed the declarative memory can either be
Episodic or Semantic. Episodic memory contains biographical details of our lives. Memories
relating to our personal life experiences constitute the episodic memory and it is for this
reason that its contents are generally emotional in nature. Although such experiences are hard
to forget, yet it is equally true that many events take place continuously in our lives and that
we do not remember all of them. Besides, there are painful and unpleasant experiences which
are not remembered in as much detail as pleasant life experiences. Semantic memory, is the
memory of general awareness and knowledge. All concepts, ideas and rules of logic are
stored in semantic memory. For instance, it is because of semantic memory that we remember
the meaning of say ‘nonviolence’ or remember that 2+6=8 or the STD code of New Delhi is
011 or that the word ‘elaphant’ is misspelt. Since the contents of semantic memory relate to
facts and ideas of general awareness and knowledge, it is affect-neutral and not susceptible to
forgetting.

There are a number of strategies for improving memory called mnemonics. Mnemonics using
images require one to create vivid and interacting images of and around the material they
wish to remember. The two prominent mnemonic devices which use this are, (a)The
Keyword Method: In keyword method, an English word that sounds similar to the word of a
foreign language is identified. This English word will function as the keyword. For example,
if a person wants to remember the Spanish word for duck which is ‘Pato’, they may choose
‘pot’ as the keyword and then evoke images of keyword and the target word and imagine
them as interacting. In this case, one might imagine a duck in a pot full of water. (b)The
Method of Loci: In this method, items one wants to remember are placed as objects arranged
in a physical space in the form of visual images. This method is particularly helpful in
remembering items in a serial order. It requires visualising objects/places that one knows well
in a specific sequence, imagine the objects that need to be remembered and associate them
one by one to the physical locations. For example, suppose to remember to buy bread, eggs,
tomatoes, and soap on the way to the market, a person may visualise a loaf of bread and eggs
placed in their kitchen, tomatoes kept on a table and soap in the bathroom. When entering the
market all they need to do is to take a mental walk along the route from the kitchen to the
bathroom recalling all the items of their shopping list in a sequence.

Mnemonics using Organisation refers to imposing certain order on the material wanted to be
remembered. Mnemonics of this kind are helpful because of the framework created while
organisation makes the retrieval task fairly easy. Chunking is one such mechanism. Through
chunking it is possible to expand the capacity of STM which is otherwise 7+2. For example,
if someone is told to remember a string of digits such as 194719492004, they may create the
chunks as 1947, 1949, and 2004 and remember them as the year when India became
independent, the year when the Indian Constitution was adopted, and the year when the
tsunami hit the coastal regions of India and South East Asian countries. In chunking, several
smaller units are combined to form large chunks. For creating chunks, it is important to
discover some organisation principles, which can link smaller units. Therefore, apart from
being a control mechanism to increase the capacity of short-term memory, chunking can be
used to improve memory as well.

Review of Literature

The research was conducted by Gary Jones in 2012 to study why chunking should be
considered as an explanation for developmental change before short-term memory capacity
and processing speed. A computational model was presented that incorporated plausible
accounts of chunking, short-term memory capacity, and processing speed. It was presented
with naturalistic phonemic input. By holding capacity and processing speed constant, it was
shown that when the model had been presented with only a small amount of linguistic input it
was able to match the NWR performance of 2 to 3 year-old children; when it was presented
with a larger amount, it was able to match the NWR performance of 4 to 5 year-old children.
Thus, developmental changes in NWR performance were accounted for solely by increases in
the amount of chunked linguistic knowledge. The model shows that changes to
developmental mechanisms such as capacity and processing speed may not be necessary to
explain age-related changes in some developmental tasks.

The experiment was done by two Cornell professors, Stewart M. McCauley and Morten H.
Christiansen in 2015. There were considerable differences in language processing skill
among the normal population. In the experiment it was demonstrated that chunking ability
reflects experience with language, as measured by a standard serial recall task involving
consonant combinations drawn from naturally occurring text. The results reveal considerable
individual differences in participants’ ability to use chunk frequency information to facilitate
sequence recall. These differences predict variations across participants in the on-line
processing of complex sentences involving relative clauses. The study thus presents the first
evidence tying the fundamental ability for chunking to sentence processing skill, providing
empirical support for construction-based approaches to language. The research was
conducted by Dake Zhang, Yi Ding, Joanna Stegall and Lei Mo in 2012 to study the learning
disabilities in students who struggled in geometry problem solving in mathematics. The
students who were facing these difficulties were those with deficit visual working memory, as
geometry requires strong imagery skills. This study evaluated the effects of visual chunking
on students’ visual memory deficiencies and aimed at improving their geometry problem
solving skills. Study was conducted on four 3rd graders with difficulties in mathematics. An
adapted reversal design was employed to examine the students’ performance changes during
standard testing conditions and accommodated testing conditions. During accommodated
conditions visual chunking images were presented to students. Results suggested that the
representation of visual chunking images in accommodated testing conditions actually
improved the performance of students with geometry problem solving and the preference for
visual chunking representation approach was confirmed by the feedback from students.

Research was conducted by Unaizah Hanum Obaidellah in 2012. It investigates the roles of
chunking and schemas in learning through drawings by manipulating the spatial and semantic
content of the presented stimuli, which participants reproduced using different methods over
repeated sessions. Over three experiments with adult participants, multiple measures were
used, including: pause durations between drawn elements, numbers of reproduced objects,
error rates, sequences of element production, and transitions among chunk patterns. The first
exploratory study investigated the effects of chunking in the drawing of a complex abstract
diagram. Five participants reproduced a single stimulus in four types of tasks, which involved
delayed recall, tracing, copying and immediate recall across 10 sessions. It was found that
participants learned the diagram surprisingly quickly. They used chunking in order to aid the
leaming processes. This effect was most obvious in the delayed recall task and least so in the
tracing. The analysis of the participants’ sequence of chunk production revealed that they
used a spatial schema to organise the chunks. This appears to explain their rapid learning.

The research was conducted by Jonathan Huntley, Daniel Bor, Adam Hampshire, Adrian
Owen and Robert Howard in the year 2010. 28 people with mild Alzheimer disease were
recruited and divided into groups based on their score in Mini-Mental State Examination. A
control group was also recruited. The ability to use chunking as an encoding strategy to
improve verbal working memory performance is preserved at the mild stage of Alzheimer’s
disease, whereas use of chunking to improve spatial working memory is impaired by this
stage. Simple training in the use of chunking might be a beneficial therapeutic strategy to
prolong working memory functioning in patients at the earliest stage of Alzheimer’s disease.

The research conducted by Mohamad EL Haj, Roy Kessels, Laurent Urso, and Jean Louis
Nandrino in the year 2020. Fifteen participants with anterograde amnesia, diagnosed with
Korsakoff’s syndrome were recruited confirming the DSM-IV-TR criteria along with a
control group for the purpose of the experiment. To analyse, few Neuropsychological
assessments were exercised on all participants to evaluate general cognitive functioning,
episodic memory, Flexibility, and inhibition. Before chunking, WAIS-R procedures were
applied to determine forward and backward verbal spans for each participant. The results
were finalized with the compared scores of digit spans ( both forward and backward), before
and after chunking in the patients with Korsakoff’s syndrome and controls. Results
demonstrated an increased performance on only forward spans after chunking training in the
patients with Korsakoff’s syndrome. Although Controls demonstrated a chunking effect on
both forward and backward span performance. The study suggested a potential beneficial
effect of chunking on forward verbal spans and tasks requiring low executive resources
patients with Korsakoff’s syndrome.

The study was conducted by Norma Che Lah, Rohaida Mohd Saat, Ruhaya Hassan in 2018.
The study explored chunking strategies applied in Short Term Memory by six upper
secondary students of mixed chemistry learning abilities. The aim of the study was to observe
variations in chunking strategies utilized by the students when learning the Periodic Table of
Elements. Findings showed that students applied three varied chunking strategies: similar
chunking, mixed chunking, and characteristic chunking. The mixed chunking strategy
required learners to group a large unit of information into several smaller chunks of different
number of units. The similar chunking strategy required learners to group units into several
smaller groups of equal number of units. The third chunking strategy identified was used by
learners who grouped a large unit of information into smaller groups based on similar
characteristics such as name, formula, metal reaction to water and such like.

Hypothesis

The number of trials taken for perfect recall of chunked list of digits will be less as compared
to digits presented without chunking.

Method
Participant Preliminaries

Name: A.R.

Sex: Female

Age: 18

Educational Qualification: Higher Secondary Graduate

Materials Required

One set of chunked and non-chunked lists of digits, plain sheet.

Variables

Independent Variable: Presentation

Dependent Variable: Average trials for correct recall.

Administration

Instructions

‘I will read aloud a list of digits to you. You are required to recall back the digits to me in the
same order of presentation. Be loud and clear with your recall. The trials will continue till
you correctly recall all the items of the list in the order of their presentation. If you have any
query regarding the experiment you can ask me without any hesitation.’

Precautions

Before the conduction of the experiment, it was ensured that the lighting facility in the lab
was proper. Tasks were presented in a proper manner to avoid the chance of being fatigued
and repetitiveness. It was made sure that there was no background noise to avoid unwanted
distraction.

Procedure

First of all, the participant was read out the digits without chunking. Then she was asked to
recall those items correctly in the order of their presentation. The recalls were recorded on the
data sheet with the symbols of right and wrong responses. The trials continued till the subject
correctly recalled all the digits read out in the order of their presentation. After that the
participant was read out a list of digits in chunked form and was asked to recall digits
presented to her. In this way the process of demonstration of items and their recalls continued
till the subject correctly recalled all the digits in the string. At the end, an introspective report
of the subject was recorded.
Introspective Report

‘I was curious to take part in the in this practical and see what it measures. I was excited to
see the results. The stimulus at the end were challenging for me but the activity was
interesting nevertheless.’

Observational Report

The participant was curious about what the experiment measured. The participant listened to
the instructions carefully and the experiment was carried out smoothly. The participant asked
questions and seemed excited about the results. The participant was calm throughout and
didn’t hurry in performing the experiment.

Result

Trials
Stimulus 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
1A Y
1B Y
2A Y
2B Y
3A Y
3B Y
4A N N Y
4B Y
5A N N Y
5B N Y
6A Y
6B N Y
7A N N N N N Y
7B N N N Y
8A N N N N N N N N Y
8B N N N N Y

For condition A, average recall= 24/8= 3

For condition B, average recall= 17/8= 2.125

Discussion

The aim of this experiment is to study the impact of chunking on immediate recall of a list of
numbers. The results explain that the number of trials for non-chunked digits is much more
than the trials for chunked list of digits. In the beginning, as the list starts off with lesser
number of digits, the participant takes only one trial for a perfect recall. However, as the
number of the digits in the list increase it takes the participant more number of trials to recall
the digits perfectly. It has been made known that the number of trials mandatory to recall the
chunked list of digits were lesser than those required for digits that were not chunked.

A study, conducted by Norma Che Lah, Rohaida Mohd Saat, Ruhaya Hassan in 2018,
explored chunking strategies applied in Short Term Memory by six upper secondary students
of mixed chemistry learning abilities. The aim of the study was to observe variations in
chunking strategies utilized by the students when learning the Periodic Table of Elements.
Findings showed that students applied three varied chunking strategies: similar chunking,
mixed chunking, and characteristic chunking.

The results show that the number of trials taken for perfect recall of chunked list of digits are
less as compared to digits presented without chunking.

Conclusion

In chunking, several smaller units are combined to form large chunks. For creating chunks, it
is important to discover some organisation principles, which can link smaller units. Through
chunking it is possible to expand the capacity of STM which is otherwise 7+2. The aim of
this experiment is to study the impact of chunking on immediate recall of a list of numbers.
The hypothesis of this experiment is that the number of trials taken for perfect recall of
chunked list of digits will be less as compared to digits presented without chunking. The
results of this experiment provided evidence supporting the hypothesis and it can, therefore,
be concluded that the number of trials for non-chunked digits is much more than the trials for
chunked list of digits.
 References

Ciccarelli, S. K., White, J. N., & Ciccarelli, S. K. (2012). Psychology. Boston, Mass: Pearson
Learning Solutions.

Haj, M. E., Kessels, R. P., Urso, L., & Nandrino, J. L. (2020). Chunking to improve verbal
forward spans in Korsakoff’s syndrome. Applied Neuropsychology: Adult, 27(2), 150-157.

Huntley, J., Bor, D., Hampshire, A., Owen, A., & Howard, R. (2011). Working memory task
performance and chunking in early Alzheimer's disease. The British Journal of Psychiatry,
198(5), 398-403.

Jones, G. (2012). Why chunking should be considered as an explanation for developmental

change before short-term memory capacity and processing speed. Frontiers in psychology, 3,
167.

Lah, N. C., Saat, R. M., & Hassan, R. (2018). Cognitive strategy in learning chemistry: How
chunking and learning get together. MOJES: Malaysian Online Journal of Educational
Sciences, 2(1), 9-15.

McCauley, S. M., & Christiansen, M. H. (2015, July). Individual Differences in Chunking

Ability Predict On-line Sentence Processing. In CogSci.

Obaidellah, U. H. B. (2012). The role of chunking and schemas in learning and drawing
(Doctoral dissertation, University of Sussex).

Zhang, D., Ding, Y., Stegall, J., & Mo, L. (2012). The effect of visual ‐chunking ‐
representation accommodation on geometry testing for students with math disabilities.
Learning Disabilities Research & Practice, 27(4), 167-177.
Appendix