The results of a recent research, supports the theory that the brain has three concentric layers of working memory that stores data for easy access. Scientists who study human memory have been discussed for a long time if there are two or three layers and what are the capacity and the role of each one.

Researchers at Rice University and Georgia Institute of Technology, U.S., have found that short-term memory consists of three areas: a core that focuses on one thing active, a surrounding area that maintains at least three things active and a wider region that remains inactive things that have been tagged for later retrieval or return to the area of most activity. But the most important findings from this study is that the central region has three functions, and not two as previously proposed by other scientists. First, this nucleus directs attention to the right question. After the access it provides when you return to be appropriate. And finally, the updates if necessary.

To identify three distinct layers of memory, Chandramallika Basak from Rice University and Paul Verhaeghen from Georgia Institute of Technology, they used simple memory tasks that were commissioned to conduct the study subjects. Basak and Verhaeghen also identified core functions through the strategy of exploring the process of alternation of things in focus.

The discovered helps to explain the process by which a person can perform two tasks with efficiency at the same time, when at least one of them is repetitive and already well known. To perform the same sequence of events over and over again, the memory can automate part, so it acquires the ability to do another task at the same time.

Another facet of the study revealed that the third level of memory (the region containing inactive data) is not only separated from the other two areas, active storage, but it is between them and a kind of firewall (in the computer sense of the word). As a result, the amount of inactive data does not affect the response time or accuracy in recalling the active data.

source: http://popular-science.net