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(George) Miller (1956) showed that the individual's ability to make absolute distinctions among stimuli, to distinguish phonemes from one another, to estimate numbers accurately, and to remember a number of discrete items all seemed to undergo a crucial change at about the level of seven items. Below that number, individuals could readily handle such tasks: above it, individuals were likely to fail. Nor did this discontinuity seem accidental.
—Howard Gardner, The Mind's New Science, New York: Basic Books, 1985, p. 89.
The beginning of wisdom is calling things by their right names.
—Old Chinese Proverb.
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