Editing Cognitive psychology (section)

====Working memory====
{{main|Working memory}}
Though working memory is often thought of as just short-term memory, it is more clearly defined as the ability to process and maintain temporary information in a wide range of everyday activities in the face of distraction. The famously known capacity of memory of [[The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two|7 plus or minus 2]] is a combination of both memories in working memory and long-term memory.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Cowan |first=Nelson |date=July 2015 |title=George Miller's magical number of immediate memory in retrospect: Observations on the faltering progression of science. |journal=Psychological Review |language=en |volume=122 |issue=3 |pages=536–541 |doi=10.1037/a0039035 |issn=1939-1471 |pmc=4486516 }}</ref>

One of the classic experiments is by [[Hermann Ebbinghaus|Ebbinghaus]], who found the [[serial position effect]] where information from the beginning and end of the list of random words were better recalled than those in the center.<ref name="Eb">Ebbinghaus, Hermann (1913). On memory: A contribution to experimental psychology. New York: Teachers College.</ref> This primacy and recency effect varies in intensity based on list length.<ref name="Eb" /> Its typical U-shaped curve can be disrupted by an attention-grabbing word; this is known as the [[Von Restorff effect]].
[[File:The Working Memory Model.svg|thumb|The Working Memory Model (Baddeley and Hitch, 1974, updated-2000)]]
Many models of working memory have been made. One of the most regarded is the [[Baddeley's model of working memory|Baddeley and Hitch model of working memory]]. It takes into account both visual and auditory stimuli, long-term memory to use as a reference, and a central processor to combine and understand it all.

A large part of memory is forgetting, and there is a large debate among psychologists of [[decay theory]] versus [[interference theory]].