Making use of working memory is like temporarily pinning up certain images or words to a board so they can be moved or manipulated in some other way. The ability to keep certain details “at hand ...

A person’s memory is a sea of images and other sensory impressions ... The terms short-term memory and working memory are sometimes used interchangeably, and both refer to storage of information ...

In fact the actual number varies according to the type of information you're storing (numbers, words or images). To see how fragile working memory is, ask someone to remember just three consonants ...