Matricciani, E. Is Short-Term Memory Made of Two Processing Units? Clues from Italian and English Literatures down Several Centuries. Information2024, 15, 6.
Matricciani, E. Is Short-Term Memory Made of Two Processing Units? Clues from Italian and English Literatures down Several Centuries. Information 2024, 15, 6.
Matricciani, E. Is Short-Term Memory Made of Two Processing Units? Clues from Italian and English Literatures down Several Centuries. Information2024, 15, 6.
Matricciani, E. Is Short-Term Memory Made of Two Processing Units? Clues from Italian and English Literatures down Several Centuries. Information 2024, 15, 6.
Abstract
We propose that the short−term memory (STM), when processing a sentence, uses two uncorrelated processing units in series. The clues for conjecturing this model emerge from studying many novels of the Italian and English Literatures. This simple model, referring to the surface of language, seems to describe mathematically the input-output characteristics of a complex mental process involved in a 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 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 fully of a sentence ranges from 8.3 to 61.23 words, values that can be converted into time by assuming a reading speed, giving the range 2.64~19.54 seconds for fast-reading and 5.3~30.1 seconds for average reader. Since a sentence conveys meaning, the surface features we have found might be the 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; Processing; Sentence Modeling; Short-Term Memory; Universal Readability Index
Subject
Computer Science and Mathematics, Information Systems
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
