ResearchStudyMiller


George Miller The Magic Number Seven plus or minus two!!

 

Miller was intrigued as to why the number 7 kept appearing everywhere. For example, the seven wonders of the world, seven deadly sins, seven primary colours, seven notes of the musical scale, seven days of the week and so on.

 

In this article Miller reviewed findings from previous studies:

 

 

 

 

Miller concluded that seven chunks of data is about the maximum amount of information we can process at any one time.

 

You can read Miller's article in full at http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Miller/

 

Note on methodology

 

Notice how Miller's article is not a study in the sense that he conducted a practical (or empirical) investigation. Instead he summarised a number of research investigations (as well as everyday observations), trying to make sense of their findings.

 

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