Types of Memory

In this section, we will expand on the three types of memory introduced earlier: short-term, long-term, and working memory.

If you remember, when we covered theory in Chapter 2, we discussed information processing, which is a memory-based model developed by Western researchers that proposes the human mind as a sort of computer: input, processing, and output. To many people, this will seem like a very small part of the story, and for our purposes in this book, it is but one approach to thinking about memory and how it works. But we briefly consider it here and discuss how it is relevant to young children’s thinking and learning.

Short-Term Memory

Short-term memory is typically information that is only held for a short time (e.g., within a day, week, or more) depending on how well a particular memory has been encoded (we will get to this term later) or, in simpler terms, how an event was experienced and if it was particularly noteworthy or not. For example, can you remember if it was raining in the morning on your way to school?

There are many, many factors that relate to how well we can take information in and store it. However, we cannot possibly store all the information we come across in a day. So, some things are fleeting, but others will make their way into our short-term memory.

Long-Term Memory

Long-term memory is not only those items we store over many years.  It is also not always the kinds of story-based memories that you might think — as in remembering the sequence of small events that make up a particular holiday you celebrate with your family, or a very enjoyable birthday party you had when you turned eight. In addition, long-term memory involves procedural knowledge, such as how to ride a bike, make speech sounds with your mouth or run down the stairs. You can read about the types of memory in either Siegler and Alibali (2020) or Fivush (2022).

According to Tulving (1972), there are subtypes of long-term memory.

Working Memory

The last type of memory is the lesser-known one: working memory. In a way, it can be explained simply, but it is also quite complex. In simple terms, working memory involves holding something in short-term memory temporarily while you engage in some kind of additional processing, such as computation, sounding out a word, remembering sequences of a complex task, etc. This additional processing is the “work” part of working memory. The reality of trying to distinguish working memory from short-term memory is more complicated.

A classic task in the West to measure working memory is the “span task,” in which a person is asked to repeat increasingly long sequences of items they hear auditorily. I have recorded a version of the task for you to complete. Trust me, this is possibly the best illustration I can give you to explain the difference between short-term memory and working memory.

In your experience of doing the digits task, you were primarily using short-term memory in Part A and working memory in Part B. This is not entirely clear cut because much of our thinking involves holding information briefly in mind, or our short-term memory, while we engage in “work” on that information. But this happens to varying degrees.

I have used the digits span task in my own research and have interesting experiences with it that I think help to illustrate this point. I administered the task to five-year-olds, and they had great difficulty in Part B (the backward version). You now know from doing the task yourself that it is much more difficult! Here’s why:

• If I say “seven, three, eight” and you have to repeat back “seven, three, eight” you have just heard those numbers, and they are in your short-term memory.
• But if you have to reverse them to “eight, three, seven,” you are holding the three digits in short-term memory while you do the “work” of reversing their order. This additional processing uses working memory and thus increases difficulty.

In my work with five-year-olds, even remembering the numbers in Part A in their original order required additional processing because they had to both remember the sequence and reproduce it. Likely, when we are older, numbers are so automatized that simple repetition does not require working memory, but for young children, it may.

Working memory is a complex construct that is not well-defined in many textboks, but has been the centre of Western research on children’s thinking and learning for the last 30 or more years. So, while the definition is not always clear, consider the examples in the knowledge check below.