Question: How can we get our working memory to work for us

Alex Reid answered on 9 Nov 2018: last edited 9 Nov 2018 5:11 pm

Hi thanks for the question. I have two suggestions, but the other scientists might have more. Working memory is kind of short-term memory buffer that lets the average adult store around 5-9 items, usually temporarily. ‘Items’ here is an important term which you can take advantage of. What I mean by this is that you can ‘chunk’ things up to reduce the number of items you have to learn. For example, if you had to remember a long number, say, 3483385830028483, which is 16 items, try and split it down into smaller chunks, so ‘3483’ ‘3858’ ‘3002’ and ‘8483’. By doing it that way, you now only have four items to remember. Another way is rehearsal, which you may already naturally do. If someone tells you a phone number you are trying to remember you may find yourself saying it over and over while you scrabble for a pen and paper!