Ever since attention became an object of scientific study,
psychologists have recognized that it possesses a quantitative
dimension in terms of the maximum number of items to which a person
can attend at one time. It now seems almost universally accepted that
memory span has a capacity limit of around seven plus or minus two. In
1963 Pascual-Leone applied a new type of learning experiments to
children and proposed to Piaget the concept of mental capacity,capable
of boosting a limited number of schemes to ensure their control of the
subject's performance. There were precursors in psychology for this
kind of model: Spearman's mental energy/g-factor, Luria's energy level
of the central nervous system (as Pashler's concept of attention,
now). All this is wellknown.
However, relatively unknown remained in the English-speaking world the
formula deviced by Helmar Frank. As a young man Frank
http://www.uni-paderborn.de/extern/fb/2/Kyb.Paed/frank.html and
http://www.uni-paderborn.de/extern/fb/2/Kyb.Paed/BK/index.html ,
respecectively, had the task to estimate the maximum amount of
information which can be extracted from
a complex situation such as in an artistic show (or reading a webpage
or driving in dense traffic now) in a glimpse of an eye. Frank argued
(see http://www.paderborner-impulse.de/KKKK/bk/bk6.pdf ) that the
capacity H of short-term memory (measured in bits of information) is
the product of the processing speed S (in bits per second,
operationalized by Siegfried Lehrl as reading rate) and the duration
time D (in seconds) of memory span. Hence, H (bits) = S(bits/s) x D
(s). According to Frank and Lehrl, the mean channel
capacity of an IQ of 130 is 140 bits, 105 bits for an IQ of 112, and
70 bits of IQ 92.
Based on these experimental data by Lehrl, Frank und Pascual-Leone and
even including data of the power spectrum density of the EEG, in a
series of papers Weiss could bridge the gap between cognitive and
differential psychology.
Click to 'Memory span as the quantum of action of thought'
www.volkmar-weiss.de/publ9-e.html and 'The relationship between
short term memory capacity and EEG power spectral density'
www.volkmar-weiss.de/publ10-e.html .
Also of interest should be 'Major genes of general intelligence&'
www.volkmar-weiss.de/majgenes.html , 'The advent of a molecular
genetics of general intelligence' www.volkmar-weiss.de/intellig.html
, and '100 higlhy gifted men
have highly gifted male relatives' www.volkmar-weiss.de/table.html.
If you have difficulties with these URLs, try first
www.volkmar-weiss.de and www.volkmar-weiss.de/englisch.de .
Do you know any other empirical application or confirmation of Frank's
so called 'information psychology'?
Volkmar Weiss, Leipzig (Germany)