Editing Short-term memory (section)

=== Chunking ===
[[Chunking (psychology)|Chunking]] is a technique that allows memory to remember more things. Chunking involves organizing material into meaningful groups. Chunking can greatly increase recall capacity. For example, in recalling a phone number, chunking the digits into three groups (area code, prefix, and extension). This method of remembering phone numbers is far more effective than attempting to remember a string of 10 digits.

Practice and the usage of existing information in long-term memory can lead to additional improvements in chunking. In one testing session, an American cross-country runner was able to recall a string of 79 digits after hearing them only once by chunking them into groups the size of a running time.<ref>Ericsson, Chase & Faloon, 1980</ref>