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Human memory can be divided into three broad categories: Long-term Memory, Sensory Memory, and Short-term ( Working ) Memory.

According to the formal definition, working memory is “ A system for temporarily storing and managing the information required to carry out complex cognitive tasks such as learning, reasoning, and comprehension .” The paramount feature that distinguishes the working memory from both the long-term and sensory memory is this system ’ s ability to simultaneously process and store information.

The knowledge has what is called a “ Limited Capacity ”, meaning there is only a certain amount of information that can be stored and it is only easily accessible for a small window of time after it has been processed, with a recall time block of roughly fifteen seconds to one minute.

Experiments dealing with “ Memory Span ” have been conducted by George Miller in 1956 that indicated that the “ Most common number of items that can be stored in the working memory is five plus or minus two .” However, if this information is not retained and stored (“ consolidated ”) in one ’ s long-term memory, it will fade quickly.