short time memory and outliner software

Posted by Guido
Mar 25, 2008 at 12:49 PM

I ’ d like to start a discussion about the value of outlining software and human short time memory. As a lawyer, I have to remember at least hundreds of hierarchically structured checklists and outlines and used for a cuple of time an outliner of a german criminal law professor ( http://www.normfall.de ). In his theory, Prof. Haft explains that lawyers should build structures of basically not more than 7 items ( one parent and not more than six childs ), arguing that doing otherwise would not fit to the human short time memory’s capacity as revealed the research done by George Miller in 1956 about our limitation of processing information ( ” The magical number seven - plus or minus two ” ).

Therefor an outline should not have more than 6 main chapters, each of them having not more than 6 sub-chapters. The amount of the sub - levels should not grow larger than 7. Building bigger chunks of information does not fit in our limitated short time memory and will not be properly processed.

Working with this limitation of our short time memory in mind helped me to remember my mind-maps in an adequate and complete way. Understanding the brain’s chunking mechanism is necessary for everyone working with outliner and mind-mapping software.