What is George A. Miller?
'''George Armitrage Miller''' (February 3, 1920 – July 22, 2012) was one of the founders of [[cognitive psychology]] in the [[20th century]]. He studied thinking, [[language]], and [[memory]]. Miller found out that if you ask people to remember a list of words or numbers, most people can remember only between five and nine words or numbers. His paper ''The magical number seven, plus or minus two'' explained this as a limitation in human short-term memory.<ref>Miller, George A. 1956. The magical number seven, plus or minus two. ''Psychological Review'' '''63''': 81{{ndash}}97.</ref> Once a [[behaviorist]], Miller moved to cognitive psychology. In 1991, Miller was awarded the [[National Medal of Science]]. Miller revolutionized the world of psychology by showing that aspects of the human [[mind]] could be observed and tested in a laboratory setting.<ref>Vitello, Paul. 2012. George A. Miller, a pioneer in cognitive psychology, is dead at 92. ''New York Times''.</ref> == Early life == Miller was born in [[Charleston, West Virginia]]. In 1940 he received his bachelor's degree from the [[University of Alabama]], where he majored in English and speech. In 1946, Miller received his [[Ph.D.]] in Psychology from [[Harvard University]]. During his life, he taught as a professor at [[Princeton University|Princeton]], Harvard, and [[Rockefeller University]]. He died in [[Plainsboro, New Jersey]] at the age of 92. == Chunking == The first concept introduced by Miller is known as chunking. ''Chunking'' is a way developed to help people remember a certain number of words or numbers. It is known to help with both [[short-term memory]] and long-term memory. When he asked subjects to perform memory tasks in various experiments, he noticed that most subjects recalled about seven units from a list regardless of the list topic. Miller said that the short-term memory could only hold 5-9 chunks of information (plus or minus two) and is also a way to increase the capacity of short-term memory. A chunk can refer to digits, words, face