The Marvel of Working Memory: A Brief Exploration Working memory is like the brain’s sticky note pad—a temporary storage system that allows us to juggle information, solve problems, and make decisions. It’s the mental workspace where we manipulate data, mentally rehearse phone numbers, and follow complex instructions. But how long can our mental sticky notes stay stuck? The Duration Dilemma Scientists have probed this question for decades, and while there’s no universal stopwatch ticking away in our heads, they’ve arrived at a consensus: on average, our working memory can hold information for approximately 10 to 15 seconds . Imagine a mental stopwatch—start it when you read a phone number, and by the time it reaches 15 seconds, the digits might start fading away. The Magic Number Seven (Plus or Minus Two) Psychologist George A. Miller famously proposed the concept of the “magic number seven, plus or minus two.” He suggested that our working memory capacity hovers around seven item...