Long-Term Memory for 400 Pictures on a Common Theme

Author(s):  
Stine Vogt ◽  
Svein Magnussen

Abstract. Long-term memory for large numbers of color photographs with a common motif - doors - was studied using pictures with two levels of informative cues: original photographs, and edited pictures in which extraneous information on details such as vegetation, paint scratches, signs, and lamp posts was removed. In the study phase, subjects viewed 400 pictures and were subsequently tested for memory on two-alternative forced-choice discriminations between studied and distracter pictures from the same picture category, at retention intervals between 0.5 h and 9 days. When tested with the nonedited original photographs immediate memory performance was close to 85% correct; when pictorial details were removed memory performance dropped by 20%. The decay functions were shallow with parallel paths for the categories of pictures. It is concluded that specific details of visual scenes contributed to long-term memory of those scenes.

1992 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 199-202 ◽  
Author(s):  
James S. Nairne

Long-term memory for sequential position was examined following retention intervals that ranged from 30 sec to 24 h. The Estes perturbation model (1972) is shown to provide a reasonable qualitative fit of the dynamics of forgetting, even though the model was designed to account for the phenomena of immediate memory. Similarities among the forgetting processes of short-and long-term memory are considered.


Author(s):  
Ian Neath ◽  
Jean Saint-Aubin ◽  
Tamra J. Bireta ◽  
Andrew J. Gabel ◽  
Chelsea G. Hudson ◽  
...  

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hayden Schill ◽  
Jeremy Wolfe ◽  
Timothy F. Brady

Memory capacity depends on prior knowledge, both in working memory and in long-term memory. For example, radiologists have improved long-term memory for medical images compared to novices. Furthermore, people tend to remember abnormal or surprising items best. This is often claimed to arise primarily because such items attract additional attention at encoding. How do expertise and abnormality interact when experts are actively searching for abnormalities; e.g. radiologists looking at mammograms? In the current work, we investigate whether expert radiologists (N=32) show improved memory performance for abnormal images compared to novice participants (N=60). We consider two types of “abnormality.” A mammogram can have a focal abnormality that can be localized or it could simply be the mammogram of a woman known to have cancer (e.g. the image of the breast contralateral to the focal abnormality). Must an image have a focal abnormality for additional attentional processing to be engaged? We found that experts have better memory for mammograms than novice participants and enhanced memory for abnormal images relative to normal images. Overall, radiologists showed no memory benefit for the contralateral-abnormal images and did not discriminate them from normal images, but had enhanced memory for images with focal abnormalities. Our results suggest that focal abnormalities play an important role in enhancing memory of expert observers.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lea M. Bartsch ◽  
Vanessa M. Loaiza ◽  
Lutz Jäncke ◽  
Klaus Oberauer ◽  
Jarrod A. Lewis-Peacock

AbstractMaintenance of information in working memory (WM) is assumed to rely on refreshing and elaboration, but clear mechanistic descriptions of these cognitive processes are lacking, and it is unclear whether they are simply two labels for the same process. This fMRI study investigated the extent to which refreshing, elaboration, and repeating of items in WM are distinct neural processes with dissociable behavioral outcomes in WM and long-term memory (LTM). Multivariate pattern analyses of fMRI data revealed differentiable neural signatures for these processes, which we also replicated in an independent sample of older adults. In some cases, the degree of neural separation within an individual predicted their memory performance. Elaboration improved LTM, but not WM, and this benefit increased as its neural signature became more distinct from repetition. Refreshing had no impact on LTM, but did improve WM, although the neural discrimination of this process was not predictive of the degree of improvement. These results demonstrate that refreshing and elaboration are separate processes that differently contribute to memory performance.HighlightsRepeated reading, refreshing, and elaboration are differentiable in brain activation patterns in both young and older adults.Elaboration selectively improved long-term memory for young adults, and the size of the benefit was related to the neural separability of elaboration from other processes.Older adults implemented a sub-optimal form of elaboration, and this may be a factor contributing to age-related deficits in long-term memory.Ethics statementThe study was approved by the ethical review board of the canton of Zurich (BASEC-No. 2017-00190) and all subjects gave informed written consent in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki.Data and code availability statementAll behavioral data and analysis scripts can be assessed on the Open Science Framework (osf.io/p2h8b/). The fMRI data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author, LMB. The fMRI data are not publicly available due to restrictions of the Swiss Ethics Committees on research involving humans regarding data containing information that could compromise the privacy of research participants.


2020 ◽  
Vol 16 ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Norwardatun Mohamed Razali

Colours are mentioned many times in the Holy Qur’an. Some are mentioned as colours in general, and some of them in specific; yellow, white, black, red, green and blue. Each colour has its special connotations in the Holy Qur’an and among these colours, yellow and red are considered as warm colours. This study aimed to find the significance of warm colours in the Holy Qur’an and its relationship to human psychology; focusing on memory performance. This research had used an inductive approach in terms of selecting Quranic verses; in which yellow and red colour were mentioned. These verses were then analysed by referring to the books of exegetical considerations in order to know the implications of these colours’ usage, as well as referring to psychology books and scientific articles. The research found that yellow and red colour in the Holy Qur’an mostly indicate attracting attention or pleasing viewers. Some examples included the yellow colour in resemblance to the colour of the cow, attention to decay and destruction such as yellow colour in the withering plants, and attention to resurrection like the red colour resembling scene of the Day of Resurrection. This indication in the Holy Qur’an is consistent with psychologists’ discovery; warm colours such as red and yellow are more effective and attractive in the process of transferring information from external to sensory memory, and thus to short-term and long-term memory.


1966 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 302-309 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. D. Baddeley

It has been shown that short-term memory (STM) for word sequences is grossly impaired when acoustically similar words are used, but is relatively unaffected by semantic similarity. This study tests the hypothesis that long-term memory (LTM) will be similarly affected. In Experiment I subjects attempted to learn one of four lists of 10 words. The lists comprised either acoustically or semantically similar words (A and C) or control words of equal frequency (B and D). Lists were learned for four trials, after which subjects spent 20 min. on a task involving immediate memory for digits. They were then asked to recall the word list. The acoustically similar list was learned relatively slowly, but unlike the other three lists showed no forgetting. Experiment II showed that this latter paradox can be explained by assuming the learning score to depend on both LTM and STM, whereas the subsequent retest depends only on LTM. Experiment III repeats Experiment I but attempts to minimize the effects of STM during learning by interposing a task to prevent rehearsal between the presentation and testing of the word sequences. Unlike STM, LTM proved to be impaired by semantic similarity but not by acoustic similarity. It is concluded that STM and LTM employ different coding systems.


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