Is Short-Term Memory Made of Two Processing Units? Clues from Italian and English Literatures down Several Centuries

Abstract

We propose that short-term memory (STM), when processing a sentence, uses two independent units in series. The clues for conjecturing this model emerge from studying many novels from Italian and English Literature. This simple model, referring to the surface of language, seems to describe mathematically the input-output characteristics of a complex mental process involved in reading/writing a sentence. We show that there are no significant mathematical/statistical differences between the two literary corpora by considering deep-language variables and linguistic communication channels. Therefore, the surface mathematical structure of alphabetical languages is very deeply rooted in the human mind, independently of the language used. The first processing unit is linked to the number of words between two contiguous interpunctions, variable Ip, approximately ranging in Miller’s 7 ± 2 range; the second unit is linked to the number of Ip’s contained in a sentence, variable MF, ranging approximately from 1 to 6. The overall capacity required to process a sentence fully ranges from 8.3 to 61.2 words, values that can be converted into time by assuming a reading speed, giving the range 2.6∼19.5 s for fast-reading and 5.3∼30.1 s for the average reader. Since a sentence conveys meaning, the surface features we have found might be a starting point to arrive at an information theory that includes meaning.

Keywords

• alphabetical texts
• human communication
• human mind
• information
• linguistic communication channels
• Miller’s Law