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Hick's law vs Miller's law 0:39
A 39-second explainer of Hick's law vs Miller's law, narrated over the same demo you can try yourself.
Try the interactive Hick's law vs Miller's law demo
What this video covers
Both are about "how many", but they measure different things. Hick's law is about choosing - decision time grows with the number of options. Miller's law is about holding - working memory keeps only about seven chunks at once. One is speed of choice; the other is capacity of memory.
Drag the count up and watch them part ways: Hick's time climbs in a gentle curve (deciding gets slower, but never impossible), while Miller's memory hits a wall around seven and tips into overload. Same number feeding two quite different limits - which is exactly why people muddle them.