Human Memory Is Short – We can Remember Only 4 Things At A Time

Numerous theoretical accounts of memory have differentiated memory for facts and memory for context. Our mind’s limit found – 4 things at once.

Memory is an organism’s ability to store, retain, and subsequently retrieve information. Human memory is short. And we would do well to remember that, say researchers at the University of Missouri-Columbia. When we present phone numbers, we present them in groups of three and four, which helps us to remember the list said University of Missouri-Columbia psychologist Nelson Cowan, who co-led the study with colleagues Jeff Rouder and Richard Morey.

That inflates the estimate. We believe we’re approaching the estimate that you get when you cannot group. There is some controversy over what the real limit is, but more and more I’ve found people are accepting this kind of limit.

While most of us may only be able to hold three or four things in mind at once, some people have achieved amazing feats of working memory.