nostalgia, con't con't.

Okay, so let's discuss short term memory!
We usually hear many people talk about "short term memory loss". They say, "Oh, dear, my memory's horrible. I have short term memory loss."

Short term memory allows us to remember ideas, or thoughts, for several seconds without intentional rehearsing. When at Bell Laboratories, George Miller conducted experiments, explaining that short term memory can only store 7±2 items. Did you know that humans can only remember on demand: seven digits, six letters and five words after a presentation?
Mr. Miller's belief is that the working memory can only hold 2 seconds of sound, while the memory span of youth is seven items.

However, it is believed, now, that short term memory actually holds an even lower amount of items--from 4 to 5.
It is easier, however, to increase the amount of things someone can remember, by chunking. Now, what is chunking? Chunking is when one groups individual items of information together. For example, a phone number is expected to be remembered, one usually chunks the area code, then groups the first three numbers, then the last four, or they group the number into two pieces.

Short term memory is usually dependent on what is heard, rather than what is seen. It was found that subjects found remembering letters that sounded the same, quite hard to differentiate. This suggests that the letters were first memorized through hearing rather than visualizing. However, this generalization/assumption cannot be proven.

So there you go.
A quick run-over of the Short Term Memory!