Definition: A memory process of storing and retrieving information together with other pieces of related information; reducing a large number of items to a single item.
Insight: Experts in various fields are able to perceive and store large meaningful patterns of information through chunking, and search for answers in their working memory to solve problems.
Insight: As units of information become increasingly meaningful, we can reduce the number of single units of information that need to be remembered.
Reference: Adriaan de Groot (1966) study of chess players: found that chess masters are able to chunk a large number of recognisable or meaningful positions together, but their memories of random positions were almost the same as novice players.
Insight: Chunking relates to the human brain's ability to group large amounts of information into clusters that are bound together by meaningful connections.
Insight: We can take in lots of information, find logical connections, and store it in a mental file as if it is was a single piece of information.
Reference: Dutch psychologist Adriaan de Groot (1965) - study of chess players.
Reference: William Simon and Herbert Chase [should be William G. Chase and Herbert A. Simon] (1973) - study of chess players.
Insight: Chunking explains a lot of high performers with specific memory patterns and quick decision making.
Insight: Elite athletes and high performers instinctively recognise patterns through repetition and chunking.
Reference: William G. Chase and Herbert A. Simon (1973) repeated a study conducted by de Groot, but instead included positions that would never happen in chess - showing that experts could no longer rely on meaningful patterns and chunking, and in this case performed similar to novice players.
Example: Phone and credit card numbers are broken into groups of numbers.
Insight: Chunking is a method of decreasing the number of items you have to remember by increasing the size of each item.
Insight: Experts often use chunking as an effective memory technique.
Insight: Chunking often takes seemingly meaningless information and reinterprets it using information already stored in our memories - we can attach new information to existing groups of information.
Definition: Chunking describes how the human brain reorganises concepts absorbed in the short-term memory and applies them to experiences.
Insight: Effective speed readers can hold more advanced concepts in their short-term memories so when the time comes to absorb information and combine it with other experiences, they have more ideas to work with - the author's ideas come more readily.
Insight: We can expand our memory or brain processing capacity through chunking bits of information together in meaningful ways.
Insight: We can learn how to compress and streamline information through symbolic ways and create meaning - language, abstract concepts, narrative.
Example: The process of converting a sequence of individual actions into routine to build habits.
Insight: We rely on behavioural chunks each day that form routines.
Insight: Working memory can hold around 7 independent pieces of information, but we can expand memory by linking similar information in meaningful ways through 'chunking'.
Insight: Most people can hold around 7 items in their short term memory. This volume of total information can be expanded by incorporating more information into each item (chunking).
Insight: In presenting core ideas, chunking of similar concepts or ideas can help to set a unifying theme.
Definition: A memory technique of breaking larger amounts of information into smaller clusters.
Key Insights & Principles
Learning
Humans tend to have a limited short term or working memory, and can remember around 7 items.
The information we can remember can be expanded by grouping (chunking) similar pieces of information in meaningful ways.
We have the ability to create meaning with language, symbolism, abstract concepts, and stories.
The more we learn, the more meaning we can give to new pieces of information.
Group information in meaningful ways.
Practice continuous learning and repeat practice.
Create meaning through symbolic means including stories, language, abstraction.
