6 ms·

I've always preferred groups of 2-6 people. Many board games are made for groups of this size. On one side, humans can mentally cope with 4-6 objects at most -

I've always preferred groups of 2-6 people. Many board games are made for groups of this size. On one side, humans can mentally cope with 4-6 objects at most - as though we have 4-6 memory slots, which is reasonable given that we have 4 limbs. On another side, network effects of nodes on a grid become unmanageable above about 6 nodes - a group of 6 people will have 36 one-on-one interpersonal relationships to manage.

miketery 8y ago
a group of 6 will have 5 + 4 + 3 + 2 + 1 = 15.
- paulddraper 8y ago
  You get 36 if you count the relationship in each direction (e.g. crush one way, disinterest the other way), and if you also count each person on their own (e.g. a quick temper).
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- IncRnd 8y ago
  It's directional. The calculation is 6x6 = 36. The simplest example is with two people. John is a different person from Mary, so both John and Mary have a relationship with each other. 1x2 = 2 relationships.
  - a_t48 8y ago
    Shouldn't that be 6x5=30? Unless you count everyone's relationship with themselves.... [this also aligns with the 5+4+3+2+1 version, it's just n*(n-1)/2 ]
    - anonytrary 8y ago
      He probably meant to say 30, since he did set the diagonal elements to zero in his N = 2 answer (otherwise he would have said 4).
    - IncRnd 8y ago
      yes
siruncledrew 8y ago
Tangential, but I noticed the same thing with visual information when testing data visualizations: people have a hard time processing information beyond 4-5 variables.
- wtvanhest 8y ago
  Most humans can only really understand 2D (2 variables). That is why visual representation of data are almost always 2d. Graphs, charts, scatter plots.
  - nathancahill 8y ago
    Certainly 3 variables is common place? https://i0.wp.com/flowingdata.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/fake-YouTube-views.png https://i0.wp.com/flowingdata.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08... 4 is pretty common too, but I agree that 4-5 is tricker to make sense of.
  - jodrellblank 8y ago
    What are you claiming? That in a picture with line graphs varying X, Y, people can't understand if the lines are different colours or the same colours (a third dimension)? That people can't play 3D games because they can't understand that the image is depicting length, width and depth? That people can't use windowing GUIs with overlapping windows, because they can't understand the Z-order of which window is "in front"? It seems intuitive that people can cope with more than 2 variables and more than 2 "dimensions" spatially or otherwise. What do you mean when you say they can't - what, specifically, can't people do?
    - jschwartzi 8y ago
      I think they're claiming that people have enormous amounts of trouble reasoning formally about graphs with 3 or more dimensions. Anecdotally this is bourne out by my experience, where it's easy to read an X-Y plot and speak to how the X value influences the Y value(EG linear, cubic, quartic, grows to infinity in one direction, etc). Add a third or 4th dimension and I start to have a lot of trouble making general statements because I have to juggle the impact of the third dimension on the X-Y plot slices. Please note that I'm not saying it's impossible for people to intuitively understand 3 or more dimensions. Indeed as you say we do it every day. This is not the same as reasoning about it in a general way, which is much harder.
api_or_ipa 8y ago
> On another side, network effects of nodes on a grid become unmanageable above about 6 nodes - a group of 6 people will have 36 one-on-one interpersonal relationships to manage. Network effects grow surprisingly fast. Between 2 people there's only 1 bidirectional edge. Between 3 it's 3 and between 4 it's 6. | people | edges | |--------|-------| | 2 | 1 | | 3 | 3 | | 4 | 6 | | 5 | 10 | Intuitively, this is important because in a conversation, each member must project and rationalise each other communicator's response to a message. In other words, each member must be cognisant of every other members response to every message. Between a few people that's manageable, but the combinatorics really grows for n >= 4.
- Uhhrrr 8y ago
  Interesting - so with 5 people, your memory slots are clearly exceeded, even without considering the possibility that edges might not be the same in each direction.
- bmm6o 8y ago
  > this is important because in a conversation, each member must project and rationalise each other communicator's response to a message Do they, though? Maybe I participate in conversations differently, but trying to unravel how A interpreted B's comment is not something I would do.
  - 40acres 8y ago
    I think you (and everyone else) does this implicitly. It makes sense for a survival perspective to be able to assess how people react to certain comments & actions in conversation. If other people support a comment it's a signal that you can reiterate the comment or build upon it.
    - bmm6o 8y ago
      There's a difference between observing how a comment was generally received and remembering exactly how each person reacted. I'm not saying nobody does the latter, but I don't.
pizzazzaro 8y ago
Coincidentally, the idea of this natural conversational limit at Four surprises me. Sure, it is challenging, if you intend to participate (without just being a spectator). I'm used to Six as the described hard limit for this phenomenon. The professor would then muse down a tangent about "six archetypal roles". But remembering this about human active memory and reasoning capabilities flushes things out a bit more.

miketery 8y ago

a group of 6 will have 5 + 4 + 3 + 2 + 1 = 15.

paulddraper 8y ago
You get 36 if you count the relationship in each direction (e.g. crush one way, disinterest the other way), and if you also count each person on their own (e.g. a quick temper).
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
IncRnd 8y ago
It's directional. The calculation is 6x6 = 36. The simplest example is with two people. John is a different person from Mary, so both John and Mary have a relationship with each other. 1x2 = 2 relationships.
- a_t48 8y ago
  Shouldn't that be 6x5=30? Unless you count everyone's relationship with themselves.... [this also aligns with the 5+4+3+2+1 version, it's just n*(n-1)/2 ]
  - anonytrary 8y ago
    He probably meant to say 30, since he did set the diagonal elements to zero in his N = 2 answer (otherwise he would have said 4).
  - IncRnd 8y ago
    yes

siruncledrew 8y ago

Tangential, but I noticed the same thing with visual information when testing data visualizations: people have a hard time processing information beyond 4-5 variables.

wtvanhest 8y ago
Most humans can only really understand 2D (2 variables). That is why visual representation of data are almost always 2d. Graphs, charts, scatter plots.
- nathancahill 8y ago
  Certainly 3 variables is common place? https://i0.wp.com/flowingdata.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/fake-YouTube-views.png https://i0.wp.com/flowingdata.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08... 4 is pretty common too, but I agree that 4-5 is tricker to make sense of.
- jodrellblank 8y ago
  What are you claiming? That in a picture with line graphs varying X, Y, people can't understand if the lines are different colours or the same colours (a third dimension)? That people can't play 3D games because they can't understand that the image is depicting length, width and depth? That people can't use windowing GUIs with overlapping windows, because they can't understand the Z-order of which window is "in front"? It seems intuitive that people can cope with more than 2 variables and more than 2 "dimensions" spatially or otherwise. What do you mean when you say they can't - what, specifically, can't people do?
  - jschwartzi 8y ago
    I think they're claiming that people have enormous amounts of trouble reasoning formally about graphs with 3 or more dimensions. Anecdotally this is bourne out by my experience, where it's easy to read an X-Y plot and speak to how the X value influences the Y value(EG linear, cubic, quartic, grows to infinity in one direction, etc). Add a third or 4th dimension and I start to have a lot of trouble making general statements because I have to juggle the impact of the third dimension on the X-Y plot slices. Please note that I'm not saying it's impossible for people to intuitively understand 3 or more dimensions. Indeed as you say we do it every day. This is not the same as reasoning about it in a general way, which is much harder.

api_or_ipa 8y ago

> On another side, network effects of nodes on a grid become unmanageable above about 6 nodes - a group of 6 people will have 36 one-on-one interpersonal relationships to manage. Network effects grow surprisingly fast. Between 2 people there's only 1 bidirectional edge. Between 3 it's 3 and between 4 it's 6. | people | edges | |--------|-------| | 2 | 1 | | 3 | 3 | | 4 | 6 | | 5 | 10 | Intuitively, this is important because in a conversation, each member must project and rationalise each other communicator's response to a message. In other words, each member must be cognisant of every other members response to every message. Between a few people that's manageable, but the combinatorics really grows for n >= 4.

Uhhrrr 8y ago
Interesting - so with 5 people, your memory slots are clearly exceeded, even without considering the possibility that edges might not be the same in each direction.
bmm6o 8y ago
> this is important because in a conversation, each member must project and rationalise each other communicator's response to a message Do they, though? Maybe I participate in conversations differently, but trying to unravel how A interpreted B's comment is not something I would do.
- 40acres 8y ago
  I think you (and everyone else) does this implicitly. It makes sense for a survival perspective to be able to assess how people react to certain comments & actions in conversation. If other people support a comment it's a signal that you can reiterate the comment or build upon it.
  - bmm6o 8y ago
    There's a difference between observing how a comment was generally received and remembering exactly how each person reacted. I'm not saying nobody does the latter, but I don't.

pizzazzaro 8y ago

Coincidentally, the idea of this natural conversational limit at Four surprises me. Sure, it is challenging, if you intend to participate (without just being a spectator). I'm used to Six as the described hard limit for this phenomenon. The professor would then muse down a tangent about "six archetypal roles". But remembering this about human active memory and reasoning capabilities flushes things out a bit more.