Benchmark findings for theories and models of short-term and working memory

What is it about?

Sixteen scholars of short-term and working memory, representing a large variety of theoretical views, came together and compiled a set of benchmark findings in that research area. Criteria for benchmark findings are that they have been replicated, that they are sufficiently general across methods, memory contents, and populations, and that they have "theoretical leverage", that is, they have important theoretical implications. The authors made an effort to describe the findings (and their boundary conditions) in a theory-neutral fashion to provide a common set of empirical target for theories and models of working memory.

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Why is it important?

Many research fields are characterized by a rich set of empirical findings, and a rich set of competing theories. These theories compete through their success in explaining subsets of the findings. Each theorist selects the set of findings their theory is tested against ad hoc, typically guided by what the theory *can* explain, not by what it *should* explain. This leads to a situation in which multiple theories that purportedly are theories of the same object (for instance, working memory) receive empirical support from only partially overlapping, non-systematically selected set of findings. The field has no common yardstick for evaluating theories, so that there is no way to resolve the theory competition, and no way to measure theoretical progress. A shared set of benchmark findings can provide such a yardstick: Competing theories can be compared by their ability to explain the same set of benchmarks. New theories have a common set of empirical targets they can aim to explain with highest priority.

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