Familiarity increases the number of remembered Pokémon in visual short-term memory

Long-term memory (LTM) can influence many aspects of short-term memory (STM), including increased STM span. However, it is unclear whether LTM enhances the quantitative or qualitative aspect of STM. That is, do we retain a larger number of representations or more precise representations in STM for familiar stimuli than unfamiliar stimuli? This study took advantage of participants’ prior rich multimedia experience with Pokémon, without investing on laboratory training to examine how prior LTM influenced visual STM. In a Pokémon visual STM change detection task, participants remembered more first-generation Pokémon characters that they were more familiar with than recent-generation Pokémon characters that they were less familiar with. No significant difference in memory quality was found when quantitative and qualitative effects of LTM were isolated using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analyses. Critically, these effects were absent in participants who were unfamiliar with first-generation Pokémon. Furthermore, several alternative interpretations were ruled out, including general video-gaming experience, subjective Pokémon preference, and verbal encoding. Together, these results demonstrated a strong link between prior stimulus familiarity in LTM and visual STM storage capacity.

[1]  Isabel Gauthier,et al.  A visual short-term memory advantage for objects of expertise. , 2009, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[2]  Steven J. Luck,et al.  Visual short term memory , 2007, Scholarpedia.

[3]  R. Engels,et al.  The benefits of playing video games. , 2014, The American psychologist.

[4]  Thomas W. James,et al.  Expert individuation of objects increases activation in the fusiform face area of children , 2013, NeuroImage.

[5]  Heather Buttle,et al.  High familiarity enhances visual change detection for face stimuli , 2003, Perception & psychophysics.

[6]  N. Kanwisher,et al.  The fusiform face area subserves face perception, not generic within-category identification , 2004, Nature Neuroscience.

[7]  Colleen M. Parks,et al.  Moving beyond pure signal-detection models: comment on Wixted (2007). , 2007, Psychological review.

[8]  J. Wixted.  Dual-process theory and signal-detection theory of recognition memory. , 2007, Psychological review.

[9]  Liqiang Huang,et al.  Familiarity does not aid access to features , 2011, Psychonomic bulletin & review.

[10]  Richard L. Lewis,et al.  The mind and brain of short-term memory. , 2008, Annual review of psychology.

[11]  E. Wagenmakers,et al.  AIC model selection using Akaike weights , 2004, Psychonomic bulletin & review.

[12]  Melissa R. Beck,et al.  Accessing long-term memory representations during visual change detection , 2011, Memory & cognition.

[13]  T. Wickens.  Elementary Signal Detection Theory , 2001 .

[14]  C. S. Green,et al.  Learning, Attentional Control, and Action Video Games , 2012, Current Biology.

[15]  E. Vogel,et al.  Quantity, not quality: the relationship between fluid intelligence and working memory capacity , 2010, Psychonomic bulletin & review.

[16]  P. Bennett,et al.  Inversion Leads to Quantitative, Not Qualitative, Changes in Face Processing , 2004, Current Biology.

[17]  Henrik Olsson,et al.  Visual memory needs categories. , 2005, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[18]  L. T. DeCarlo.  Signal detection theory with finite mixture distributions: theoretical developments with applications to recognition memory. , 2002, Psychological review.

[19]  Jonathan I. Flombaum,et al.  Stimulus-specific variability in color working memory with delayed estimation. , 2014, Journal of vision.

[20]  H Pashler,et al.  Familiarity and visual change detection , 1988, Perception & psychophysics.

[21]  Thomas Alrik Sørensen,et al.  Short-term storage capacity for visual objects depends on expertise. , 2012, Acta psychologica.

[22]  Frank Tong,et al.  Expertise for upright faces improves the precision but not the capacity of visual working memory , 2014, Attention, perception & psychophysics.

[23]  N. Cowan.  The magical number 4 in short-term memory: A reconsideration of mental storage capacity , 2001, Behavioral and Brain Sciences.

[24]  M. Page,et al.  Interactions Between Short-Term and Long-Term Memory in the Verbal Domain , 2008 .

[25]  Ingrid R Olson,et al.  Visual short-term memory is not improved by training , 2004, Memory & cognition.

[26]  Aude Oliva,et al.  Visual long-term memory has a massive storage capacity for object details , 2008, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[27]  Avi Chaudhuri,et al.  Recognition of unfamiliar faces: three kinds of effects , 2000, Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

[28]  S E Avons,et al.  Visualization and memorization as a function of display time and poststimulus processing time. , 1980, Journal of experimental psychology. Human learning and memory.

[29]  Diyu Chen,et al.  Visual working memory for trained and novel polygons , 2006 .

[30]  H. Simon,et al.  Perception in chess , 1973 .

[31]  A. Yonelinas,et al.  Bridging Consciousness and Cognition in Memory and Perception: Evidence for Both State and Strength Processes , 2012, PloS one.

[32]  I. Gauthier,et al.  A visual short-term memory advantage for faces , 2007, Psychonomic bulletin & review.

[33]  A. Freire,et al.  The Face-Inversion Effect as a Deficit in the Encoding of Configural Information: Direct Evidence , 2000, Perception.

[34]  Jane E Raymond,et al.  Familiarity enhances visual working memory for faces. , 2008, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[35]  Colleen M. Parks,et al.  Receiver operating characteristics (ROCs) in recognition memory: a review. , 2007, Psychological bulletin.

[36]  E. Erdfelder,et al.  Statistical power analyses using G*Power 3.1: Tests for correlation and regression analyses , 2009, Behavior research methods.

[37]  N. Kanwisher,et al.  Can generic expertise explain special processing for faces? , 2007, Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

[38]  Klaus Oberauer,et al.  Activation and binding in verbal working memory: A dual-process model for the recognition of nonwords , 2009, Cognitive Psychology.

[39]  M. Dixon,et al.  Past experience influences object representation in working memory , 2005, Brain and Cognition.

[40]  Xiao-Li Meng,et al.  Comparing correlated correlation coefficients , 1992 .

[41]  Jeffrey N Rouder,et al.  An assessment of fixed-capacity models of visual working memory , 2008, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[42]  Constantin Rezlescu,et al.  Normal acquisition of expertise with greebles in two cases of acquired prosopagnosia , 2014, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[43]  S. Luck,et al.  Discrete fixed-resolution representations in visual working memory , 2008, Nature.

[44]  Richard D. Morey,et al.  Confidence Intervals from Normalized Data: A correction to Cousineau (2005) , 2008 .

[45]  E. Vogel,et al.  Perceptual expertise enhances the resolution but not the number of representations in working memory , 2008, Psychonomic bulletin & review.

[46]  N. Cowan,et al.  The Magical Mystery Four , 2010, Current directions in psychological science.

[47]  S. Kühn,et al.  Amount of lifetime video gaming is positively associated with entorhinal, hippocampal and occipital volume , 2014, Molecular Psychiatry.

[48]  Timothy F. Brady,et al.  Conceptual Distinctiveness Supports Detailed Visual Long-term Memory for Real-world Objects the Fidelity of Long-term Memory for Visual Information , 2022 .

[49]  Kara J. Blacker,et al.  Effects of action video game training on visual working memory. , 2014, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[50]  E. Vogel,et al.  PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE Research Article Visual Working Memory Represents a Fixed Number of Items Regardless of Complexity , 2022 .

[51]  Zaifeng Gao,et al.  Coarse-to-fine encoding of spatial frequency information into visual short-term memory for faces but impartial decay. , 2011, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[52]  M. Tarr,et al.  Activation of the middle fusiform 'face area' increases with expertise in recognizing novel objects , 1999, Nature Neuroscience.

[53]  Michael X. Cohen,et al.  Inferior Temporal, Prefrontal, and Hippocampal Contributions to Visual Working Memory Maintenance and Associative Memory Retrieval , 2004, The Journal of Neuroscience.

[54]  Weizhen Xie,et al.  Familiarity Speeds Up Visual Short-Term Memory Consolidation , 2017, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[55]  Jeffrey C. Lagarias,et al.  Convergence Properties of the Nelder-Mead Simplex Method in Low Dimensions , 1998, SIAM J. Optim..

[56]  Michael X. Cohen,et al.  Neural Mechanisms of Expert Skills in Visual Working Memory , 2006, The Journal of Neuroscience.

[57]  G. Woodman,et al.  The time course of consolidation in visual working memory. , 2006, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[58]  Katherine Sledge Moore,et al.  Associative learning improves visual working memory performance. , 2005, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.