Perceptual Memory II: Visual Perceptual Long-Term Memory

Abstract

Chapter 17 lays out primary features and functions of visual long-term memory. Recollection and familiarity are distinguished. Different levels of abstractness/concretion in long-term perceptual retention are highlighted. Ability-general, or schematic long-term memory, often misleadingly called ‘semantic memory’, is distinguished from de re long-term memory, which retains perceptual reference to particulars. Episodic memory is a species of long-term de re memory. The representational forms, including the iconicity, of these different types of long-term memory are set out. There is some discussion of whether the different types of memory are different systems or rather different aspects or faces of a single memory system. The discussion stresses functions to retain perceptual contents in long-term visual memory. Relations between perceptual and conceptual attributives in long-term memory are outlined. The chapter concludes with a summary of relations among the various types of perceptual memory, short- and long-term.