Accurate visual memory for previously attended objects in natural scenes

Abstract

The nature of the information retained from previously fixated (and hence attended) objects in natural scenes was investigated. In a saccade-contingent change paradigm, participants successfully detected type and token changes (Experiment 1) or token and rotation changes (Experiment 2) to a target object when the object had been previously attended but was no longer within the focus of attention when the change occurred. In addition, participants demonstrated accurate type-, token-, and orientation-discrimination performance on subsequent long-term memory tests (Experiments 1 and 2) and during online perceptual processing of a scene (Experiment 3). These data suggest that relatively detailed visual information is retained in memory from previously attended objects in natural scenes. A model of scene perception and long-term memory is proposed.