The representation of color and form in long-term memory

Abstract

Color and form are elementary stimulus encoding dimensions that have effects on the representation of visual stimuli at early processing stages. Little is known, however, about their effects on visual long-term memory. In three experiments we investigated whether color is part of the memory representation, whether color and form are bound in the memory representation, and the effect of color context on memory performance. Experimental results suggest that color is part of the memory representation and that color and form can be represented separately in memory and accessed independently. We suggest that the binding of color and form is a deliberate strategic act that requires focal attention, not a natural consequence of processing visual stimuli. We compare our results with the predictions of two computational memory models regarding feature binding. The effect of color context was not straightforward; however, results are consistent with the encoding specificity principle.