Concept
Working memory
Overview
Working memory is a cognitive system with a limited capacity that can hold information temporarily. It is important for reasoning and the guidance of decision-making and behavior. Working memory is often used synonymously with short-term memory, but some theorists consider the two forms of memory distinct, assuming that working memory allows for the manipulation of stored information, whereas short-term memory only refers to the short-term storage of information. Working memory is a theoretical concept central to cognitive psychology, neuropsychology, and neuroscience.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
Found by search and not yet checked by a person; they may only mention the idea in passing.
But now mark that while, for the training of mere memory, science is as good as, if not better than, language; it has an immense superiority in the kind of memory it trains. In the acquirement of a language, the connections of ideas to be established in the mind correspond to facts that are in great measure accidental; whereas, in the acquirement of science, the connections of ideas to be…
Herbert Spencer, Essays on education and kindred subjects
States what Working memory is.
That system must be separately worked into the mind by itself,--a chemical fact which is thought about in connection with the other chemical facts, tending then to stay, but otherwise easily dropping out. We have, then, not so much a faculty of memory as many faculties of memory. We have as many as we have systems of objects habitually thought of in connection with each other. A given object is held in the memory by…
William James, Talks To Teachers On Psychology
Close in meaning to Working memory; the term itself is not named.
But memory in the sense of recollection of past events, if it can be explained as a habit, will have, one might suppose, to be a _verbal_ habit. As to this, Dr. Watson says: “What the man on the street ordinarily means by an exhibition of memory is what occurs in some such situation as this: An old friend comes to see him, after many years’ absence.
Bertrand Russell, Philosophy
Close in meaning to Working memory; the term itself is not named.
Philosophers who discussed Working memory
Related ideas
- Problem solving
- Prefrontal cortex
- Neuroscience
- Visual perception
- Functional magnetic resonance imaging
- Memory
- Causality
- Anterior cingulate cortex
- Dopamine
- Episodic memory
- Cognitive psychology
- Glutamic acid
- Attention
- Transcranial magnetic stimulation
- Karl H. Pribram
- Neurotransmitter
Opposing perspectives
Place in the tradition
Part of Embodied cognition.