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- Vol 1 TE: App A
working memory capacitychunkingattention limitslong-term memoryinterferencerehearsalindividual differencesBook Evidence summaryAt a glance
Cowan’s book examines why working memory—the small amount of information kept readily accessible for current thought—has a sharply limited capacity.
Key ideas
It distinguishes this limit from long-term memory, sensory persistence, rehearsal, and strategies such as grouping items into meaningful chunks. Across behavioural evidence and competing theories, Cowan argues that a central focus of attention typically holds about three to four independent chunks in young adults. Apparent variation in span can arise because tasks differ in chunking, prior knowledge, interference, rehearsal opportunities, and measurement methods. The book compares item-limit, time-based, interference, attentional, biological, and evolutionary explanations and considers how capacity relates to comprehension, reasoning, learning, development, and individual differences.
Why it matters
Its practical lesson is not a simplistic rule about presenting exactly four items; instruction should reduce unnecessary simultaneous demands, connect new material with established knowledge, allow consolidation and retrieval, and recognise that meaningful organisation changes what counts as a chunk.
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Edition abbreviations
- TE
- Teacher Edition
- PE
- Practice Edition
- RE
- Research Edition
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