In recent days, I have been obsessively staring at telephone numbers. That is partly because I have just moved house and am flicking through my contacts list to send out change-of-address notes. But there is a second reason too: I have just stumbled on a fascinating little paper written by a Princeton cognitive psychologist called George Miller on the topic of “chunking”. And while this piece of research is half a century old, it has a curious relevance today - particularly in relation to those telephone numbers which are now so unthinkingly woven into the fabric of our 21st-century lives.		最近几天我在着了魔似的盯着电话号码。这部分是因为我刚刚搬家，正翻着通讯录发出地址变更通知。不过还有另外一个原因：我偶然间看到了一篇引人入胜的小论文，这篇论文出自普林斯顿大学(Princeton University)认知心理学家乔治?米勒(George Miller)，讨论的是有关“组块”(chunking)的话题。尽管这篇研究论文是半个世纪前发表的，但它在当今时代具有一种令人好奇的相关性——尤其是在与电话号码有关的方面，这些电话号码正悄无声息地渗透到21世纪生活的方方面面。
If Miller is correct, whenever we recite those digits, we unconsciously reveal the degree to which we are hardwired to sort information into mental boxes. And that trend has important implications - even (or especially) though most of us never give a moment's thought to the shape of those numbers.		如果米勒的看法没错，那么我们每次背这些数字的时候，都无意中揭示出自己一种天生习惯的程度，那就是我们总是将信息放进“心理盒子”。这个倾向有十分重要的意义——尽管（或者说尤其是）我们多数人从没想过这些数字的形态。
The issue revolves around memory. Back in the early 1950s, Miller, like many psychologists and neuroscientists, was fascinated with the question of how brains retain information. Until that point, many scientists assumed that memory varied according to innate ability. However, Miller believed there was a more fundamental pattern. His research suggested that most people had a limit to how many pieces of data, such as numbers or letters, they could memorise when presented with a list. This usually ranged between five or nine data points but the average was “the magic number seven”.		这个问题与记忆有关。早在上世纪50年代初，和许多心理学家及神经科学家一样，米勒对于大脑如何保存信息的问题十分着迷。在那之前，许多科学家认为记忆因人的天分而不同。然而米勒相信，这其中存在一种更为基本的模式。他的研究似乎表明，在被展示了一个列表之后，多数人对于能够记忆多少段数字或字母类的数据有一个上限。这一上限通常在5到9个数据点之间，而其平均正是“魔术数字7”。
There was a crucial caveat: if people learnt to group data they saw or heard into manageable chunks - or mental clusters of information - they could remember more, since each chunk became a data point in its own right. This worked particularly well when the clusters were associated with established ideas, or pre-existing mental “labels”. However, even nameless bundling helped too. “A man just beginning to learn radio-telegraphic code hears each dit and dah as a separate chunk,” Miller wrote, after conducting experiments among radio operators. “[But] soon he is able to organise these sounds into letters and then he can deal with the letters as chunks...[then] as words, which are still larger chunks, and [then] he begins to hear whole phrases.” Better still, over time the amount of data stored in each chunk expanded. “It is a little dramatic to watch a person get 40binary digits in a row and then repeat them back without error. ... [However,] recoding is an extremely powerful weapon for increasing the amount of information that we can deal with.”		这里有一个至关重要的窍门：如果人们学会将看到或听到的数据分组成可管理的组块（即心理上的信息群），他们将能记住更多东西，因为每个组块自身会成为一个数据点。当把信息群与已有认知（即预先存在的心理“标签”）相联系时，这种方法尤其有效。然而，即便是无名的捆绑也会有所帮助。在对报务员进行实验后，米勒写道：“一个人在刚开始学习摩尔斯电码的时候，每个‘嘀’和‘嗒’在他听来都是单独的组块。（然而）不久他就能从这些嘀嘀嗒嗒的声音听出字母，于是他就可以把这些字母当做组块……（再接着）就能听出单词，这是更大的组块。（之后）他开始听出整个短语。”更棒的地方在于，随着时间的推移，每个组块中存储的数据量会不断扩大。“看着一个人听到一串40个二进制数字，接着就能毫无错误地复写出来，这一幕颇具戏剧性。……（然而，）对于增加我们所能处理的信息量来说，记录是一种极其强大的武器。”
Unsurprisingly, this chunking idea has spawned a plethora of academic debate in the past five decades. Some psychologists think the more natural number for chunking is four, not seven; others insist that chunking explains only a small part of how our memories work. Buteither way, Miller's point - and legacy - live on in our numbers.		毫无意外的是，过去50年里这种组块思想引发了大量学术辩论。部分心理学家认为，更自然的组块数目是4个而不是7个，而其他心理学家则坚称，组块只能解释记忆机理的一小部分。然而不管怎么说，米勒的基本观点及其影响依然存在于我们的数字世界中。
Most notably, if you ask an American to recite a phone number today, he or she will usually do it in three chunks, since that is how convention presents it. This is partly due to regional codes but it is also the pattern that seems to best suit our habits (and as companies such as AT&T were influenced by Miller, this is no accident). In London, people also quote numbers in three chunks. Elsewhere, there are different patterns, such as two chunks of five digits (in rural Britain) or several pairs (in France). Regardless, the key point is this: almost no one remembers numbers in a single string of unbroken digits. This feels unnatural.		最容易注意到的现象是，如果今天你让一位美国人背诵一个电话号码，他或她通常会以三个组块来背诵这个数字，因为这是惯例所致。这部分是因为区号的存在，然而它似乎也是最切合我们习惯的方式（由于AT&T等公司受到米勒的影响，这并非偶然）。在伦敦，人们在背电话号码的时候也会分成三个组块。其他地方有不同模式，比如两个5位数的组块（这是英国农村的情形）或几对数字（这是法国的情形）。不管怎么说，关键在于：几乎没人会记忆一长串连续不断的数字。那么做让人感觉不自然。
Is this a good thing? In some senses, yes - chunking means we can remember more numbers, and much else. But I cannot help but wonder if there is not a darker side to this instinct too. By keeping things in mental boxes, our brains can also become dangerously rigid. To understand this, try quoting a telephone number you know off by heart in different chunks (say, a three-chunk New York number as two chunks of five digits). It is surprisingly hard.		这种现象是好事么？从某些意义上说，确实如此——分组意味着我们能记忆更多数字和更多其他东西。然而我忍不住揣测，这种本能有没有阴暗的一面？通过把事物保存在心理盒子中，我们的大脑可能也会变得僵化——这一点十分危险。为理解这个问题，你可以试着以不同编组方式背诵你烂熟于心的电话号码（比如说，以两组5个数字的方式背诵原本分三组的纽约电话号码）。令人惊异的是，这么做非常困难。
While that rigidity - or habit - might seem just a curiosity in relation to phone numbers, it also extends to other mental processes. We are trained to keep all manner of data in mental boxes, in a way that often makes us prone to dangerous blindspots or prevents us from embracing lateral thought. Perhaps that is inevitable: we need order to live and survive. But the next time you pick up a phone, it is worth reflecting for a second on the way that we process and categorise data into chunks. If for no other reason than because “thinking out of the box”, as consultants say, can only occur when we remember the degree to which our mental processes are shaped by mental boxes, or chunks - especially when we do not notice those patterns at all.		尽管这种僵化思维（或者说习惯）看上去只是一个与电话号码有关的轶事，但它也波及其他心理过程。我们习惯于将各类数据保存在心理盒子中，这种方式往往令我们容易遭遇危险的盲点，或者阻止我们开展横向思维。也许这是不可避免的——我们需要秩序才能生活和生存。不过，下次拿起电话的时候，你不妨花一秒钟时间想一想我们将数据处理和分类成组块的方式。这么做就算没有别的原因，也是因为咨询顾问所说的“跳出固有思维模式”(thinking out of the box)，只会在我们记住心理盒子（或组块）对心理过程影响的情况下发生——尤其是在我们完全不注意这些模式时。