Chunking
In cognitive psychology, a process by which individual pieces of information are bound together into a meaningful whole, often used for memorization and mnemonics.
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Origin
Introduced by psychologist George A. Miller in his famous 1956 paper "The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on Our Capacity for Processing Information", published in Psychological Review. Miller observed that short-term memory capacity isn't limited by bits but by chunks—meaningful units that depend on the person's knowledge. For example, "FBICIAUSA" becomes manageable as three chunks (FBI, CIA, USA) rather than nine letters. This insight about meaningful grouping proved more important than the "seven" limit itself.
Updated February 22, 2026