Question
What is the difference between chunking and categorization?
Answer
The difference between chunking and categorization is kind of an imposed distinction, because they certainly relate to each other, as you have indicated here. Chunking involves taking items and compressing them into smaller chunks of information. We may have a category of numbers and we may chunk that information. Instead of having seven different digits, we may chunk it into a smaller number of digits. So instead of having the digits 4, 7, 1, 7, 5, 3, 0, we may put that into smaller chunks such as 47, 17, 53, 0. That may make it easier for us to get that information into long term memory, because it is fewer chunks of information. Categorization is being able to attach an event or item into a specific category that may already exist as an example in our memory, so we can better have access to it.
Victoria (Tori) Harding provides specialized program and location development for NeuroRestorative and acts as the Clinical Projects Coordinator for Virginia NeuroCare, a Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center (DVBIC) program in Charlottesville, Virginia. Currently a PhD candidate at James Madison University, Tori received her Master’s degree of Business Administration at Plymouth State University and completed her Master of Science in Speech-Language Pathology at Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia, Canada.
