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Description: Memory for verbal material improves when words form familiar chunks. But how does the improvement due to chunking come about? Two possible explanations are that the input might be actively recoded into chunks, each of which takes up less memory capacity than items not forming part of a chunk (a form of data compression), or that chunking is based on redintegration. If chunking is achieved by redintegration, representations of chunks exist only in long-term memory and help to reconstructing degraded traces in short-term memory. In six experiments using two-alternative forced choice recognition and immediate serial recall, we find that when chunks are small (two words) they display a pattern suggestive of redintegration, while larger chunks (three words), show a pattern consistent with data compression. This is concurs with previous data showing that there is a cost involved in recoding material into chunks in short-term memory. With smaller chunks this cost seems to outweigh the benefits of recoding words into chunks. The main features of the serial recall data can be captured by a simple extension to the Primacy model of Page and Norris (1998).