Object memory and change detection: Dissociation as a function of visual and conceptual similarity

• Published in: Acta psychologica Vol. 127; no. 1; pp. 114 - 128
• Main Authors: Yeh, Yei-Yu, Yang, Cheng-Ta
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Amsterdam Elsevier B.V 01.01.2008; Elsevier
• Subjects: Adolescent; Adult; Attention; Awareness; Biological and medical sciences; Change blindness; Color Perception; Concept Formation; Discrimination Learning; Female; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Human; Humans; Judgment; Learning. Memory; Male; Memory; Mental Recall; Object memory; Pattern Recognition, Visual; Perception; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Psychophysics; Reaction Time; Similarity effect; Vision; Visual perception; Similarity effect; 2323; Change blindness; Object memory; Visual perception; Human; Memory; Vision; Stimulus change; Perception; Change blindness; Object memory; Similarity effect; Visual perception; Cognition; Experimental study
• ISSN: 0001-6918; 1873-6297
• DOI: 10.1016/j.actpsy.2007.03.002

People often fail to detect a change between two visual scenes, a phenomenon referred to as change blindness. This study investigates how a post-change object’s similarity to the pre-change object influences memory of the pre-change object and affects change detection. The results of Experiment 1 showed that similarity lowered detection sensitivity but did not affect the speed of identifying the pre-change object, suggesting that similarity between the pre- and post-change objects does not degrade the pre-change representation. Identification speed for the pre-change object was faster than naming the new object regardless of detection accuracy. Similarity also decreased detection sensitivity in Experiment 2 but improved the recognition of the pre-change object under both correct detection and detection failure. The similarity effect on recognition was greatly reduced when 20% of each pre-change stimulus was masked by random dots in Experiment 3. Together the results suggest that the level of pre-change representation under detection failure is equivalent to the level under correct detection and that the pre-change representation is almost complete. Similarity lowers detection sensitivity but improves explicit access in recognition. Dissociation arises between recognition and change detection as the two judgments rely on the match-to-mismatch signal and mismatch-to-match signal, respectively.