Temporal characteristics of visual memory.
In order to infer the temporal relations among iconic, short-term, and long-term components of visual memory, random dot patterns were used as memory stimuli in six recognition memory experiments. Experiment 1 demonstrated that recognition was still above chance for intervals up to 12 s. In Experiments 2 and 3, an intervening masking stimulus was found to be effective only if presented within the first 500 ms of the interval. The remaining three experiments employed a two-target task, with the second target replacing the masking stimulus. Recognition performance with the second target was the same as that in a single-target task, whereas performance with the first target was almost at chance level. Increasing the interval between the targets resulted in a gradual improvement in the recognition of the first target.
D005556:Form Perception; D006801:Humans; D008568:Memory; D008570:Memory, Short-Term; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D010470:Perceptual Masking; D011930:Reaction Time; D013997:Time Factors