ABSTRACT
Up to this point, my account has attempted to use a structure that links the events of my own scientific career with the developments within cognitive psychology that were happening at the time, mapping both onto my geographical location at that time. From this point, it becomes more difficult to sustain such a framework. Within a period of about four years I moved from Sussex to San Diego to Los Angeles back to Sussex to Stirling and then to Cambridge where I stayed for the next 20 years. Spread across the last three of these locations was the development of the concept of working memory, a theme that has continued to evolve over the last 40 years. However, I continue to find the geographical structure a useful way of linking my research to my life more generally since both develop in parallel. In the case of working memory I have chosen to link the three initial components with the place most closely associated with its early development, respectively, Sussex for the phonological loop, Stirling for the sketchpad and Cambridge for later developments including the central executive. There were of course many other issues that cropped up during my 20 years in Cambridge. These will be described using a topic-based approach, while my later chapters revert to a more chronological structure.
