"Working Memory"

[Christian J Lebiere]

First of all, I think that it has been an excellent, very useful
discussion.  This is exactly what the act-r-users mailing list was
intended for but until now it hadn't fulfilled its potential.  Keep it
up.

I initially prefered "chunk" because I thought (still do) that "dme"
(like "wme") is a lame, unpronouncable, funny-looking acronym.  It is
just not a word.  However, I found Pete's argument for "dme" = "deme" so
convincing that I would suggest to go one step further: instead of using
"dme" and pronouncing it "deme", let us use "deme" itself as the word. 
This has a number of advantages.

Deme is a much better word than dme.  RDAR (Radio Detecting And Ranging)
might have been a fine acronym for techies.  But radar caught on among
the public because it looks like a real word and has a clear
pronounciation.  So did laser, nylon, meme, etc.  They are catchy.  To
paraphrase Woody allen, 90% of life is marketing.

Unlike dme, deme has an unambiguous pronounciation.  We are trying to
replace our synonymous use of working memory and declarative memory, wme
and chunk, by a unique designation.  Adopting a word that everyone
pronounces differently is not exactly a recipe for great communication.

Deme can stand for both DEclarative MEmory and DEclarative Memory
Element.  This means that the past inconsistency in commands, with some
using wm (e.g. addwm) and others using wme (e.g. modwme), can be solved.
 Addwm becomes adddeme and modwme becomes moddeme (or add-deme and
mod-deme, but that is a debate for another day).

Christian