ArticlePsychonomic bulletin & review2023
Massive visual long-term memory is largely dependent on meaning.
Article in Psychonomic bulletin & review, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
7 citing papers in PubMed.
- Object recognition ability predicts episodic location memory, enhanced by meaningfulness.Psychological research · 2026Article
- Executive control can query hidden human memories.Journal of experimental psychology. General · 2025Article
- No evidence of a visual testing effect for novel, meaningless objects.Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition · 2025Article
- Transforming clinical reasoning-the role of AI in supporting human cognitive limitations.Frontiers in digital health · 2025Review
- Why things look the way they do: we live in a Cartesian grid of reified concepts.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Review
- Semantic meaning enhances feature-binding but not quantity or precision of locations in visual working memory.Memory & cognition · 2024Article
- The influence of semantics on long-term visual memory capacity in children and adults.The British journal of developmental psychology · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Previous research demonstrated a massive capacity of visual long-term memory (VLTM) for meaningful images. However, the capacity and limits of a "pure" VLTM that is independent of conceptual information still need to be determined. In the encoding phase of three experiments, participants viewed hundreds of images depicting real-world objects, along with visually similar images that were stripped of their semantic meaning. VLTM was evaluated using a four-alternative-forced-choice test including old and new images and their counterpart mirror transformations. The results revealed superior memory for meaningful than for meaningless stimuli and importantly, there was no hint of a massive VLTM for the meaningless items. Furthermore, when examining memory recognition of visual properties per-se (i.e., original/mirror state), memory was overall poor, and practically negligible for the meaningless items. Taken together, our findings suggest that meaning is critical for massive VLTM and for the ability to store visual properties.
Indexed as
Identifiers
36221043What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.