phonological loop

Meaning: The phonological loop is one component of the Baddeley and Hitch working memory model, which also has a central executive, a visuospatial sketchpad, and an episodic buffer. The loop has two parts: a phonological store (the "inner ear") that holds sound-based traces for only a couple of seconds, and an articulatory rehearsal process (the "inner voice") that silently repeats items to refresh them. Reading a phone number to yourself while you dial it uses the loop.

On the MCAT: A passage describes a recall experiment and asks what the result shows. In the word-length effect, lists of short words are recalled better than lists of long words, because more short words fit into the brief rehearsal window. In articulatory suppression, participants repeat an irrelevant word such as "the" while memorizing letters. This blocks rehearsal and lowers verbal recall, but it has little effect on a spatial task. That pattern supports separate verbal and visual components. Interference is greatest when two tasks draw on the same component.

Common confusion: Students treat the loop as all of short-term memory. It handles only verbal and acoustic material. Remembering a route or a shape relies on the visuospatial sketchpad. Rehearsal in the loop also keeps information active but does not guarantee long-term storage. Deeper, meaning-based (elaborative) encoding does more for that.