Do working memory chunks come in order? Like, I’d kind of expect that if you have 5 concepts in working memory, you can’t additionally remember the order they should go in, because that’s another working memory chunk. Or if you can remember the order they should go in, then introspectively I’d imagine they’d become one working memory chunk.
I don’t really know, but my guess is that, well, it’s a bit messy, and yes if your chunks need to fit in a particular combination that you don’t have a good grasp on, that strains your working memory.
But, I don’t think there are literal chunks and ordering them literally costs a chunk. Chunks are patterns of thought that can bring associations of other patterns of thought, and those associations can be stronger or weaker. If the associations are sufficiently strong it makes sense to model the chunk-cluster as a single chunk.
(I notice I’m somewhat confused about this, and somewhat going off “there’s enough working memory research that I’m fairly confident ‘chunks’ is a useful abstraction, but I’m not sure why.”)
I’m kinda brain-dead right now and can’t introspect well enough to figure out how it subjectively feels for me.
I think this post of mine is… probably relevant, although it might require some additional inference to make the relevance obvious:
Do working memory chunks come in order? Like, I’d kind of expect that if you have 5 concepts in working memory, you can’t additionally remember the order they should go in, because that’s another working memory chunk. Or if you can remember the order they should go in, then introspectively I’d imagine they’d become one working memory chunk.
I don’t really know, but my guess is that, well, it’s a bit messy, and yes if your chunks need to fit in a particular combination that you don’t have a good grasp on, that strains your working memory.
But, I don’t think there are literal chunks and ordering them literally costs a chunk. Chunks are patterns of thought that can bring associations of other patterns of thought, and those associations can be stronger or weaker. If the associations are sufficiently strong it makes sense to model the chunk-cluster as a single chunk.
(I notice I’m somewhat confused about this, and somewhat going off “there’s enough working memory research that I’m fairly confident ‘chunks’ is a useful abstraction, but I’m not sure why.”)
I’m kinda brain-dead right now and can’t introspect well enough to figure out how it subjectively feels for me.
I think this post of mine is… probably relevant, although it might require some additional inference to make the relevance obvious:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/n7vPLsbTzpk8XXEAS/what-s-your-cognitive-algorithm