The emergence of Miller's magic number on a sparse distributed memory

PLoS One. 2011 Jan 5;6(1):e15592. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0015592.

Abstract

Human memory is limited in the number of items held in one's mind--a limit known as "Miller's magic number". We study the emergence of such limits as a result of the statistics of large bitvectors used to represent items in memory, given two postulates: i) the Sparse Distributed Memory; and ii) chunking through averaging. Potential implications for theoretical neuroscience are discussed.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Humans
  • Memory / physiology*
  • Models, Neurological*
  • Models, Theoretical
  • Neurosciences / methods*