Miller (1956)

Aim:
To investigate the capacity of short term memory

Method:
- Participants counted a number of dots flashed onto a screen

Results:
- Participants could recall about 7 items
      - Participants would recall the same number of items for letters/numbers/words

Conclusion:
 - Short term memory holds 7±2 items
 - People chunk things together in order to retain more information

Evaluation:
- A variety of studies show that short term memory is limited to just 4 chunks
      - Cowan (2001)
- When tested on purely visual information it was found that 4 items were the limit
      - Vogel et al. (2001)
- Simon (1974) found that the size of the chunks affect the capacity of STM
      - Larger chunks (such as phrases) mean a shorter span
      - Smaller chunks (such as letters) mean a longer span