Within the [[short-term memory]] system, evidence favours an interference theory of forgetting, based on various researchers’ manipulation of the amount of time between a participant’s retention and recall stages finding little to no effect on how many items they are able to remember1remember.<ref name="emone" /> Looking solely at verbal short-term memory within studies that control against participants’ use of rehearsal processes, a very small temporal decay effect coupled with a much larger interference decay effect can be found2. No evidence for temporal decay in verbal short-term memory has been found in recent studies of serial recall tasks2. Regarding the word-length effect in short-term memory, which states that longer word lists are harder to recall than short word lists, researchers argue that interference plays a larger role due to articulation duration being confounded with other word characteristics3.
===Working Memory===
Both theories are equally argued in [[working memory]]. One situation in which this shows considerable debate is within the [[memory span|complex-span task]] of working memory, whereas a complex task is alternated with the encoding of to-be-remembered items1. It is either argued that the amount of time taken to perform this task or the amount of interference this task involves cause decay1decay. <ref name="emone" /> A [[working memory#Time-based resource sharing model|time-based resource-sharing model]] has also been proposed, stating that temporal decay occurs once attention is switched away from whatever information is to be remembered, and occupied by processing of the information4. This theory gives more credit to the active rehearsal of information, as refreshing items to be remembered focuses [[attention]] back on the information to be remembered in order for it to be better processed and stored in memory4. As processing and maintenance are both crucial components of working memory, both of these processes need to be taken into account when determining which [[forgetting#Theories of forgetting|theory of forgetting]] is most valid. Research also suggests that information or an event’s [[salience (neuroscience)|salience]], or importance, may play a key role6. Working memory may decay in proportion to information or an event’s salience6. This means that if something is more meaningful to an individual, that individual may be less likely to forget it quickly.
