In this study, we investigated the nature of long-term memory representations for naturalistic audio-visual scenes. Whereas previous research has shown that audio-visual scenes are recognized more accurately than their unimodal counterparts, it remains unclear whether this benefit stems from audio-visually integrated long-term memory representations or a summation of independent retrieval cues. We tested two predictions for audio-visually integrated memory representations. First, we used a modeling approach to test whether recognition performance for audio-visual scenes is more accurate than would be expected from independent retrieval cues. This analysis shows that audio-visual integration is not necessary to explain the benefit of audio-visual scenes relative to purely auditory or purely visual scenes. Second, we report a series of experiments investigating the occurrence of study-test congruency effects for unimodal and audio-visual scenes. Most importantly, visually encoded information was immune to additional auditory information presented during testing, whereas auditory encoded information was susceptible to additional visual information presented during testing. This renders a true integration of visual and auditory information in long-term memory representations unlikely. In sum, our results instead provide evidence for visual dominance in long-term memory. Whereas associative auditory information is capable of enhancing memory performance, the long-term memory representations appear to be primarily visual.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.