IN VISUAL RECOGNITION MEMORY, INTERFERENCE REFLECTS PROXIMITY IN MULTIDIMENSIONSAL SPACE

Over short intervals, the passage of time seems to have little impact on memory for basic visual attributes —spatial frequency, orientation, and direction of motion (e.g., Magnussen et al., 1991). This robustness contrasts sharply with memory’s fragility in the face of interference from succeeding inputs. We set out to examine such interference using Sternberg’s (1966) recognition memory procedure. In this procedure, subjects see a series of n stimuli followed by a single probe. They then judge whether the probe stimulus had been in the series. Performance, percent correct or latency, varies with n, the number of items in the series, and, when the probe had been in the series, with the position that the probe occupied (more recent positions produce better recognition).