💾 Brief Storage System
The short-term memory acts as a temporary store for information for a duration of 15-30 seconds without rehearsal, and in this way, it functions as a gateway between sensory input and long-term memory consolidation.
🔢 The Magic Number 7±2
Research conducted by George Miller shows that the short-term memory can hold around 5-9 items at the same time. The capacity of an individual varies depending on the type of information and the complexity of the content.
📞 Passive vs Active Processing
In contrast to the working memory's active manipulation, the short-term memory passively holds the information for a very short time—like phone numbers or names—before either forgetting or encoding occurs.
🔄 Rehearsal Mechanisms
Maintenance rehearsal repeats the information so that it can be kept in memory for a longer time, while elaborative rehearsal links the new information with the already existing knowledge, thus effectively facilitating the encoding of long-term memory.
⚠️ Interference & Decay
Information disappears because of time-based decay or gets pushed out by new incoming information through interference, which is the reason why we quickly forget details that we have just encountered.
🧩 Part of Memory Hierarchy
In Atkinson-Shiffrin model, the short-term memory serves as a bridge between the sensory memory and the long-term memory, transferring only the attended information for the possible permanent storage and retrieval.
🎠Encoding Specificity
The way the information is encoded sonically, visually, or semantically affects the quality of retention. The dominant mode of encoding in the case of verbal short-term memory is acoustic encoding, which leads to errors and recalls patterns affected by confusion.