Short-term memory as a working memory control process

Aben et al. (2012) take issue with the unthoughtful use of the terms “working memory” (WM) and “short-term memory” (STM) in the cognitive and neuroscientific literature. Whereas I agree that neuroscientists using the term WM to refer to sustained neural activation and cognitive psychologists using the terms interchangeably reflects that the field has lost control over its own dictionary, the recommendations to develop more tasks does not seem to get to the heart of the matter. Here, I argue in favor of a theoretical approach to the constructs of WM and STM, as the terms have become as impure as the tasks that purport to measure the constructs.