Memory Degrades with Age (IMAGE) University of California - Riverside Caption A team of psychologists has found strong associations between working memory -- a fundamental building block of a functioning mind -- and three health-related factors: sleep, age, and depressed mood. The team also reports that each of these factors is associated with different aspects of working memory. Working memory is the part of short-term memory that temporarily stores and manages information required for cognitive tasks such as learning, reasoning, and comprehension. Credit W. Zhang, UC Riverside. Usage Restrictions None License Licensed content Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert system.