The status and interpretation of neuropsychological evidence: Commentary on ‘No evidence yet for functional independence of verbal short‐term memory and long‐term verbal knowledge’ by Majerus, Cowan and Oberauer (2026)

The debate as to whether short-term and long-term verbal memory and processing are distinct has a very long history, lasting over six decades in various forms, based on empirical research with healthy individuals and with brain damaged individuals who have contrasting, specific cognitive impairments. The target article by Bormann et al. (2026) focuses on evidence that the ability to retain a short verbal sequence in sequential order can be impaired, with intact functioning of long-term learning and intact access to stored knowledge as well as to other aspects of language processing. However, the short commentary from Majerus et al. (2026) does not actually challenge that distinction. The title of their commentary argues that there is ‘No evidence yet for functional independence of verbal short-term memory and long-term verbal knowledge’. However, Bormann et al. and other researchers (e.g. Shallice & Papagno, 2019; Vallar, 2019) do not claim that STM patients do not use long-term verbal knowledge, so the commentary does not address or critique the target article. As Majerus et al. point out, and Bormann et al. argue in the introduction and discussion of their article, word knowledge is required to identify that the stimuli are digits, words, letters etc., and individuals with impairments in retaining short verbal sequences in serial order have no difficulty with identifying phonology and articulation associated with the stimuli. All of their participants showed intact ability to repeat single words, even if other aspects of word processing were impaired. Bormann et al. focus specifically on two previous speculative critiques