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Subject:The semi-magic number 7? Not for lists. From:Imogen Casebourne <imogen -at- ASSYST-INTL -dot- COM> Date:Thu, 6 May 1999 11:10:58 METDST
Hi guys,
> Dick Margulis wants a pointer to <<...the recent discussion
> (or a reference of some sort) concerning the fallacy that one
> must never ever have more than seven items in a list?>>
>
If you want a well written introduction to studies in short
term and long term memory, you could try the following book:
"A Users Guide to Memory" by Alan Baddely.
It cites various research projects and has lots of examples.
It doesn't relate these to technical writing, but it does
introduce studies which are probably the basis of theories about
chunking information, providing mnemonics and not using long lists in
technical writing.
