-term memory system, which has only limited capacity. This information can be retained, by rehearsal, for a period of minutes, and subjected to various cognitive operations such as scanning and recoding. Finally, informational units, derived from the contents of the short-term memory, are placed in the long-term memory, "which is organized for retrieval" (Estes, 1987, p. 15). In this general account, therefore, memory performance is "a function of information processed at the time of encoding, and a question of how far the encoded information is processed again at the time [of retrieval, when] memory is tested" (Engelkamp & Zimmer, 1994, p. 15).
Despite the general agreement, however, there are sharp divisions over the manner in which every one of these processes occurs, and over the nature and relations of the parts of the memory system. Within the structural approach to the study of memory, for example, the further elucidation of the nature of the component memory systems has constituted one of the principal subjects of the volumes of research
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