The demise of short-term memory

The first wave of modern research on short-term memory was preoccupied with its existence as a valid system of memory. One subsequent development has been the application of the short-term/ long-term distinction to the study of individual and subject-population differences (aging, amnesia, and so on). Another development has been the investigation of how short-term memory articulates with such full-blown cognitive processes as reasoning, perception, and language comprehension. These efforts have now faltered, badly, in response to changing conceptions of human memory and unwelcome data. However, the properties of isolated, short-term memory subsystems continue to be identified. The sorts of evidence that have contributed to the fragmentation, if not the death, of an all-purpose short-term memory system have nonetheless advanced our knowledge of related cognitive processes. The study of such relationships is illustrated in the case of reading.