Components of Visual Memory

Abstract

Visual recognition memory for a sequence of non-verbalized patterns is shown to have a large and clearly defined recency effect. This recency effect occurs with random list lengths and therefore cannot be due to differential processing of the end items. The effect is completely removed by just 3 s of mental arithmetic but survives for at least 10 s over unfilled intervals. Recognition memory for patterns at other serial positions is slower, less accurate, and shows no primacy effect; performance at these earlier serial positions is dependent upon the time for which patterns are initially presented, but is unaffected by the duration of the retention interval, mental arithmetic, and the time between patterns on initial presentation. These findings provide evidence that visual memory has two components that are closely analogous to the short-term (STM) and long-term (LTM) components of verbal memory. Visual STM, here called visualization, has a capacity of one pattern, cannot be activated LTM, and does not seem to be the gateway to LTM.

The Relationship Between Online Visual Representation of a Scene and Long-Term Scene Memory.

“…Object memory was consistently superior for the two objects fixated most recently before the test. This recency advantage, characteristic of shortterm memory retention (Glanzer & Cunitz, 1966;Murdock, 1962;Phillips & Christie, 1977), indicates a VSTM component to online scene representation, apparently limited to two objects, an estimate consistent with independent evidence of VSTM capacity for complex objects (Alvarez & Cavanagh, 2004). Irwin and Zelinsky (2002) observed a similar recency effect for object position memory.…”

Constructing Visual Representations of Natural Scenes: The Roles of Short- and Long-Term Visual Memory.

“…After a manipulated number of subsequent objects (between one and seven), the target position was masked, and participants were shown four of the nine objects, indicating which of the four had appeared at the masked location. Zelinsky and Loschky observed a serial position pattern very similar to that of Phillips and Christie (1977). A recency effect was observed: Position memory was reliably higher when only one or two objects intervened between target fixation and test.…”

“…In the visual memory literature, recency effects have been consistently observed for the immediate recognition of sequentially presented visual stimuli, ranging from novel abstract patterns (Broadbent & Broadbent, 1981;Neath, 1993;Phillips, 1983;Phillips & Christie, 1977;Wright, Santiago, Sands, Kendrick, & Cook, 1985) to pictures of common objects and scenes (Korsnes, 1995;Potter & Levy, 1969). 2 Phillips and Christie (1977) presented a series of between five and eight randomly configured checkerboard objects at fixation. Memory was probed by a change detection test, in which a test pattern was displayed that was either the same as a presented pattern or the same except for the position of a single filled square.…”

“…In contrast, the introduction of a brief interfering activity after list presentation, which should displace information from STM, typically eliminates the recency advantage, while leaving prerecency portions of the serial position curve unaltered (Baddeley & Hitch, 1977;Glanzer & Cunitz, 1966). Phillips and Christie (1977) replicated most of these findings in the domain of visual memory, and in particular, they found that a brief period of mental arithmetic or visual pattern matching after stimulus presentation eliminated their one-item recency effect without influencing the stable prerecency performance. Additional evidence connecting recency effects to STM comes from the neuropsychological literature, in which patients with anterograde amnesia exhibited impaired prerecency performance with normal recency performance (Baddeley & Warrington, 1970), whereas patients with STM deficits exhibited normal prerecency performance and impaired recency performance (Shallice & Warrington, 1970).…”

Creation of visual long-term memory

“…Visual WM can store visual information for a short period of time, and the mechanisms underlying encoding and the maintenance of information in visual WM have been studied extensively (Alvarez & Cavanagh, 2004;Luck & Vogel, 1997;Phillips, 1983;Wheeler & Treisman, 2002;Woodman & Luck, 2004). Visual information can be stored also in visual LTM (Phillips & Christie, 1977), but the mechanisms responsible for this storage have not been identified. For verbal material, formation of LTM involves both the resources of attention and those of WM (Greene, 1987;Kane, Hambrick, & Conway, 2005), and it is important to know whether the same is true for storage of visual spatial information.…”