Survivors of severe closed head injury (CHI) were compared with neurologically normal matched controls on measures of short-term memory processes. The results indicate that patients with CHI took longer to scan their short-term memory than controls, and this increased disproportionately as the memory load increased. The number of errors made in scanning short-term memory increased for patients with CHI, suggesting inefficient as well as slow scanning. These differences were present despite equivalent memory span between groups. The results of this study have implications for day to day memory processes that require manipulation of information in short-term memory.