My edition of The Essential Guide to User Interface Design is from the 1990's, but it is still a fantastic book. A new edition is out, if you are interested.
"Memory is not one of the most developed of human attributes. Short-term memory is highly susceptible to the interference of such distracting tasks as thinking, reciting, or listening, which are constantly erasing and overwriting it. Remembering a telephone number long enough to complete the dialing operation taxes the memory of many people. The short-term memory limit is generally viewed as 7 +/- 2 "Chunks" of information (Miller, 1956), and knowledge, experience, and familiarity govern the size and complexity of chunks that can be recalled. To illustrate, most native English-speaking people would find recalling seven English words much easier than recalling seven Russian words... The human active vocabulary (words that can be recalled) typically ranges between 2,000 and 3,000 words. Our power of recognition is much greater than our power of recall, and this phenomenon should be utilized in design."
- Page 58-59. -The Essential Guide to User Interface Design by Wilbert O. Galitz
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