What Is the Primary Function of Short-Term Memory?

Identification

• Stimuli in the environment that garner the attention of a human, whether by sight, sound, smell, taste or touch produce an instant reaction in the brain. The information that is taken in may be placed into short-term memory to be retrieved, transferred into long-term memory or just simply forgotten. Thus, working memory provides a storage bin where a response to current stimuli in the environment that provokes an interest is temporarily held until the individual decides what to do with the data.
  
  

Significance

• According to researchers at the University of Oregon, "People choose what is important and relevant to them," and "voluntarily pick what information they store in short-term memory." Because there is a limited capacity for what can be stored at one time, what an individual remembers is based on arbitrary decisions. Many examples have been given of instances in which two or more people view the same event and recall totally different aspects of the happenings.
  
  

Function

• When the memory of an experience is deemed important and stored in long-term memory, these retained memories are often "used to guide behavior," according to a study published in "Abnormal Psychology" by psychologists from Indiana University (IU). The researchers at IU attested that working memory "is thought to play a central role in behavioral regulation . . . and deficits in working memory capacity have been associated with dysregulated behavior such as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). . . ."
  
  

Features

• An article by a group from University of Michigan published in the 2008 "Annual Review of Psychology" states that "the three core processes of short-term memory" are "encoding, maintenance, and retrieval." In a simplified example, a person is painting the kitchen. The painting experience is registered (encoded) in the brain and maintained in the short term to complete the task, so what is completed and what to do next is known. In addition, tried techniques of painting are retrieved from LTM by working memory for use in the current experience.
  
  

Considerations

• Alison Preston, of the University of Texas at Austin's Center for Learning and Memory, stated in "Scientific American" (September 26, 2007), that converting an ongoing event from the working memory into stable "long-term memory requires the passage of time." During this process, according to Preston, there is "an important, if not essential, role for sleep in the consolidation of newly formed memories." The exact role sleep plays has not been determined to date, and is one of many ongoing inquiries into operational functions of working memory.