We’ve all experienced this moment: you’re on the phone and the person you’re talking
to gives you the name and number of someone you need to call right away. You don’t
have a pen or paper to write down the information, so you repeat the name and number
over and over to help yourself remember them. You try to get off the phone quickly so
you can make the call while the number is still running through your head. You may find
that your memory isn’t very reliable in this situation.
Psychologists have many theories about how this type of memory works: some refer
to it as short-term memory, others as working memory. In this chapter we’ll call this type
of quick memory—the memory you need for less than a minute—working memory.