First, preemptive and preventive uses of force are often justified by claiming either that there is substantial risk of a future attack or that it is difficult to ascertain how dangerous the target is.
Short-Term Memory: Up to 7 Items, But Highly Volatile. Many psychology experiments have shown that our short-term memory can hold only a limited number of separate items. The average is about 7 items, plus or minus 2, depending on the individual. You can easily confirm this by reading someone a series of words that have no connection with one another, then asking this person to repeat them.
The Duration of Short-Term Memory. Most of the information kept in short-term memory will be stored for approximately 20 to 30 seconds, but it can be just seconds if rehearsal or active maintenance of the information is prevented. Some information can last in short-term memory for up to a minute, but most information spontaneously decays quite quickly.