How Does The Brain Work? If I could answer that question, I could probably be cooling my heels on a nice island somewhere, mimosa in hand, Instead, I am left to read research and theories about how the brain (and reading) operates. One can dream, though..... For years, researchers delineated memory into two types: short term and long term. More recently, after the advent of LaBerge and Samuels Automaticity Theory (1974) and Perfetti's Verbal Efficiency Theory (1988), this construct was re-imagined as working memory --which adds the dimension of processing to the function of storage ( Daneman & Carpenter , 1980). As they explain, "Working memory is assumed to have processing as well as storage functions; it serves as the site for executing processes and for storing the products of these processes" (p. 450). Working memory is active rather than passive. Tanabe , Azumi , Osaka, & Naoyuki (2009) explain that workin...