Short-term or working memories are memories held for a brief period of time which disappear unless they are transferred to our long-term memory (LTM). Research has identified various locations for LTMs. For example, the study of a patient known as HM (see PSYCHOLOGY REVIEW Vol. 21, No. 3) showed that the formation of LTMs was associated with activity in the hippocampus. Perhaps even more illustrative is the research with taxi drivers (Maguire et al. 2000), which showed that there was more neural material in the hippocampus of experienced taxi drivers — the increased size was due to storing more spatial information.
But where are temporary working memories stored? Researchers have proposed two possible ideas: one is that a group of neurons remain persistently active like an idling engine, maintaining the memory temporarily. An alternative idea is that a network of neurons holds the temporary memory by making short-term changes to the synapses operating between neurons in the network.
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