From: Richard Loosemore (rpwl@lightlink.com)
Date: Fri Apr 28 2006 - 08:50:56 MDT
Eliezer S. Yudkowsky wrote:
> Richard Loosemore wrote:
>>
>> Short term memory does not have 7 items in it.
>
> I know. But it makes a convenient magic number.
>
Uh? My point was that, yes, it does make a convenient magic number,
but for a different argument: what is probably happening in STM is that
there are several thousand things in "short term memory" at any given
moment, but if the system tries to keep several unconnected groups of
things in there, it can only reliably keep seven sets of them before one
of those groups gets descheduled.
In the context of *that* kind of perspective on STM, the recent
discussion about seven items, and about making comparisons between them
(serially? to what end?) would not make a great deal of sense.
Richard Loosemore
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