The message is sent when the individuals are paying attention to a stimulus or if the message activates a known pattern. These structures stay for approximately twenty seconds. Some of these structures are retained longer than twenty seconds, but most are quickly forgotten or lost at this stage. An example of this is forgetting a phone number as soon as it is dialed or forgetting a name only seconds after they introduce themselves. Working memory, also called short-term memory, can only hold a limited amount of information during certain a duration of time.
Organization is also a concept used for retaining information in working memory.
Component is classification by category or concept. Sequential is based on chronology. Central unifying of ideas is relevance and transitional organization is relating words or phrases to indicate a change over time. However, it is impossible to rehearse, repeat or organize all incoming messages. Information that we do remember for a short amount of time goes into long- term memory.