Working Memory

In recent decades, psychologists have moved away from thinking of short-term memory as one single, uniform store, proposing instead that it is made up of several distinct components. This multi-component view was first put forward by Baddeley in 1986, who argued that short-term memory is not a passive holding area but an active work bench — a system that constantly handles, manipulates, and transforms a wide variety of material while a person carries out different cognitive tasks. Baddeley calls this active work bench working memory, and describes it as having three components.

The first component is the phonological loop, which holds a limited number of sounds; unless these sounds are rehearsed, they decay within about two seconds. The second component is the visuospatial sketchpad, which stores visual and spatial information and, like the phonological loop, has a limited capacity. The third component, which Baddeley calls the central executive, organises and coordinates information arriving from the phonological loop, the visuospatial sketchpad, and long-term memory. Functioning much like a true executive, the central executive allocates attention to whichever information is needed for a given cognitive task, and it monitors, plans, and controls behaviour more …