title: Massive memory revisited: Limitations on storage capacity for object details in visual long-term memory.
abstract: Previous work suggests that visual long-term memory (VLTM) is highly detailed and has a massive capacity. However, memory performance is subject to the effects of the type of testing procedure used. The current study examines detail memory performance by probing the same memories within the same subjects, but using divergent probing methods. The results reveal that while VLTM representations are typically sufficient to support performance when the procedure probes gist-based information, they are not sufficient in circumstances when the procedure requires more detail. We show that VLTM capacity, albeit large, is heavily reliant on gist as well as detail. Thus, the nature of the mnemonic representations stored in VLTM is important in understanding its capacity limitations.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland 21218, USA cunningham@jhu.edu.
authors.forename: Corbin A
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: Cunningham
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurobiology and Behavior, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, California 92697, USA.
authors.forename: Michael A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Yassa
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland 21218, USA.
authors.forename: Howard E
authors.initials: HE
authors.lastname: Egeth
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D057567:Memory, Long-Term; D021641:Recognition, Psychology; D014796:Visual Perception; D055815:Young Adult