Working memory is your brain's scratch pad and contributes to anything that needs effortful, focused thought. Here's how to keep your mental pencils sharp
Like attention, working memory is one of the brain's most crucial front-line functions. Everything you know and remember, whether it's an event, a skill or a fascinating fact, started its journey into storage by going through your working memory.
But working memory is much more than just a clearing house for long-term memories. It has been described as the brain's scratch pad: the place where information is held and manipulated. If you are doing anything that requires effortful, focused thought, you are using your working memory.
In the 1970s, Alan Baddeley and Graham Hitch of the University of York, UK, came up with an influential model to explain how the system works. The main component is the executive controller, ...
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