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What is Working Memory?

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...