mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor) (11/01/83)
I was asked for the references to Jane Mackworth's work on Short Term Memory in the 1960's relating to the magic number 8+-6. My reply follows: ===== There are several papers by Jane F. Mackworth over the period 1962-66. I think they have been unjustly neglected by subsequent researchers. I won't give the full references here: just the journal page reference. (CJP= Canadian Journal of Psychology) CJP 16, 48-54, 1962 CJP 16, 120-127, 1962 CJP 16, 42-47, 1962 CJP 16, 55-59, 1962 CJP 17, 62-81, 1963 J. Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior 2, 75-85, 1963 CJP 18, 292-303, 1964 JVLVB (see above) 3, 300-308, 1964 CJP 19, 304-315, 1965 CJP 20, 18-33, 1966 I can't tell you which is most important, but I suggest you start with the last (number 10) and then number 8. The references in those may cue you as to which previous ones are most relevant. I talked a lot with Mackworth about this work, but was never directly involved. She had a theory about it based on processing resource sharing that was probably ahead of its time, because she never got it published (as far as I know). Martin Taylor