scholarly journals Reconciling change blindness with long-term memory for objects

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katherine Wood ◽  
Daniel J. Simons

How can we reconcile remarkably precise long-term memory for thousands of images with failures to detect changes to similar images? We explored whether people can use detailed, long-term memory to improve change detection performance. Subjects studied a set of images of objects and then performed recognition and change detection tasks with those images. Recognition memory performance exceeded change detection performance, even when a single familiar object in the post-change display consistently indicated the change location. In fact, participants were no better when a familiar object predicted the change location than when the displays consisted of unfamiliar objects. When given an explicit strategy to search for a familiar object as a way to improve performance on the change detection task, they performed no better than in a six-alternative recognition memory task. Subjects only benefited from the presence of familiar objects in the change detection task when they had more time to view the pre-change array before it switched. Once the cost to using the change detection information decreased, subjects made use of it in conjunction with memory to boost performance on the familiar-item change detection task. This suggests that even useful information will go unused if it is sufficiently difficult to extract.

2006 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 218-228 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Rodway ◽  
Karen Gillies ◽  
Astrid Schepman

This study examined whether individual differences in the vividness of visual imagery influenced performance on a novel long-term change detection task. Participants were presented with a sequence of pictures, with each picture and its title displayed for 17  s, and then presented with changed or unchanged versions of those pictures and asked to detect whether the picture had been changed. Cuing the retrieval of the picture's image, by presenting the picture's title before the arrival of the changed picture, facilitated change detection accuracy. This suggests that the retrieval of the picture's representation immunizes it against overwriting by the arrival of the changed picture. The high and low vividness participants did not differ in overall levels of change detection accuracy. However, in replication of Gur and Hilgard (1975) , high vividness participants were significantly more accurate at detecting salient changes to pictures compared to low vividness participants. The results suggest that vivid images are not characterised by a high level of detail and that vivid imagery enhances memory for the salient aspects of a scene but not all of the details of a scene. Possible causes of this difference, and how they may lead to an understanding of individual differences in change detection, are considered.


2021 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniela S. Rivera ◽  
Carolina B. Lindsay ◽  
Carolina A. Oliva ◽  
Francisco Bozinovic ◽  
Nibaldo C. Inestrosa

Aging is a progressive functional decline characterized by a gradual deterioration in physiological function and behavior. The most important age-related change in cognitive function is decline in cognitive performance (i.e., the processing or transformation of information to make decisions that includes speed of processing, working memory, and learning). The purpose of this study is to outline the changes in age-related cognitive performance (i.e., short-term recognition memory and long-term learning and memory) in long-lived Octodon degus. The strong similarity between degus and humans in social, metabolic, biochemical, and cognitive aspects makes it a unique animal model for exploring the mechanisms underlying the behavioral and cognitive deficits related to natural aging. In this study, we examined young adult female degus (12- and 24-months-old) and aged female degus (38-, 56-, and 75-months-old) that were exposed to a battery of cognitive-behavioral tests. Multivariate analyses of data from the Social Interaction test or Novel Object/Local Recognition (to measure short-term recognition memory), and the Barnes maze test (to measure long-term learning and memory) revealed a consistent pattern. Young animals formed a separate group of aged degus for both short- and long-term memories. The association between the first component of the principal component analysis (PCA) from short-term memory with the first component of the PCA from long-term memory showed a significant negative correlation. This suggests age-dependent differences in both memories, with the aged degus having higher values of long-term memory ability but poor short-term recognition memory, whereas in the young degus an opposite pattern was found. Approximately 5% of the young and 80% of the aged degus showed an impaired short-term recognition memory; whereas for long-term memory about 32% of the young degus and 57% of the aged degus showed decreased performance on the Barnes maze test. Throughout this study, we outlined age-dependent cognitive performance decline during natural aging in degus. Moreover, we also demonstrated that the use of a multivariate approach let us explore and visualize complex behavioral variables, and identified specific behavioral patterns that allowed us to make powerful conclusions that will facilitate further the study on the biology of aging. In addition, this study could help predict the onset of the aging process based on behavioral performance.


2018 ◽  
Vol 89 (4) ◽  
pp. 409-415
Author(s):  
Tomoe Masuoka ◽  
Megumi Nishiyama ◽  
Takafumi Terasawa

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Qi Lin ◽  
Kwangsun Yoo ◽  
Xilin Shen ◽  
Todd R. Constable ◽  
Marvin M. Chun

Abstract What is the neural basis of individual differences in the ability to hold information in long-term memory (LTM)? Here, we first characterize two whole-brain functional connectivity networks based on fMRI data acquired during an n-back task that robustly predict individual differences in two important forms of LTM, recognition and recollection. We then focus on the recognition memory model and contrast it with a working memory model. Although functional connectivity during the n-back task also predicts working memory performance and the two networks have some shared components, they are also largely distinct from each other: The recognition memory model performance remains robust when we control for working memory, and vice versa. Functional connectivity only within regions traditionally associated with LTM formation, such as the medial temporal lobe and those that show univariate subsequent memory effect, have little predictive power for both forms of LTM. Interestingly, the interactions between these regions and other brain regions play a more substantial role in predicting recollection memory than recognition memory. These results demonstrate that individual differences in LTM are dependent on the configuration of a whole-brain functional network including but not limited to regions associated with LTM during encoding and that such a network is separable from what supports the retention of information in working memory.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Goecke ◽  
Klaus Oberauer

In tests of working memory with verbal or spatial materials repeating the same memory sets across trials leads to improved memory performance. This well-established “Hebb repetition effect” could not be shown for visual materials. This absence of the Hebb effect can be explained in two ways: Either persons fail to acquire a long-term memory representation of the repeated memory sets, or they acquire such long-term memory representations, but fail to use them during the working memory task. In two experiments, (N1 = 18 and N2 = 30), we aimed to decide between these two possibilities by manipulating the long-term memory knowledge of some of the memory sets used in a change-detection task. Before the change-detection test, participants learned three arrays of colors to criterion. The subsequent change-detection test contained both previously learned and new color arrays. Change detection performance was better on previously learned compared to new arrays, showing that long-term memory is used in change detection.


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