Abstract
Many studies suggest a large capacity memory for briefly presented pictures of whole scenes. At the same time, visual working memory (WM) of scene elements is limited to only a few items. We examined the role of retroactive interference in limiting memory for visual details. Participants viewed a scene for 5 s and then, after a short delay containing either a blank screen or 10 distracter scenes, answered questions about the location, color, and identity of objects in the scene. We found that the influence of the distracters depended on whether they were from a similar semantic domain, such as “kitchen” or “airport.” Increasing the number of similar scenes reduced, and eventually eliminated, memory for scene details. Although scene memory was firmly established over the initial study period, this memory was fragile and susceptible to interference. This may help to explain the discrepancy in the literature between studies showing limited visual WM and those showing a large capacity memory for scenes.
Highlights
Real-world scenes tend to include a large number of different objects that are arranged in a variety of different configurations
We investigated the role of retroactive interference in visual scene memory
The main finding was that retroactive interference from the similar distracter images was able to reduce or even eliminate memory for the details of the objects in the scenes
Summary
Real-world scenes tend to include a large number of different objects that are arranged in a variety of different configurations. Traditional models of memory posit that there is a long-term store that is effectively unlimited in capacity and duration. It has long been known that people are able to memorize a large set of photographs of visual scenes (Shepard, 1967; Standing, 1973; Vogt and Magnussen, 2007). Visual short-term memory is limited to a period of seconds and its capacity is limited to at most a handful of attended objects. This short-term memory may be useful in keeping in mind exact object details (Magnussen, 2000). There are conflicting reports regarding whether scene memory is relatively stable and long-lasting or fragile and of brief duration
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