Chunking by social relationship in working memory

Working memory (WM) uses knowledge and relations to organize store multiple items in fewer structured units, or chunks. We investigated: (a) whether a crowd that exceeds the WM capacity is retained better if individuals can be grouped social chunks; (b) what counts as chunk: two involved meaningful interaction just spatially close face-to-face. In delayed change-detection task, participants were more accurate reporting changes arrays involving facing (vs. non-facing) dyads they depicted interactions not (Experiments 1, 2 4). This advantage survived secondary task increased load, only when formed (Experiment 3). Thus, representation of chunk crowds groups. The mere face-to-face positioning sufficient trigger chunking, although without semantic anchor this process fainter susceptible interference.