Visual long-term memory has a massive storage capacity for object details
Open accessAbstract
One of the major lessons of memory research has been that human memory is fallible, imprecise, and subject to interference. Thus, although observers can remember thousands of images, it is widely assumed that these memories lack detail. Contrary to this assumption, here we show that long-term memory is capable of storing a massive number of objects with details from the image. Participants viewed pictures of 2,500 objects over the course of 5.5 h. Afterward, they were shown pairs of images and indicated which of the two they had seen. The previously viewed item could be paired with either an object from a novel category, an object of the same basic-level category, or the same object in a different state or pose. Performance in each of these conditions was remarkably high (92%, 88%, and 87%, respectively), suggesting that participants successfully maintained detailed representations of thousands of images. These results have implications for cognitive models, in which capacity limitations impose a primary computational constraint (e.g., models of object recognition), and pose a challenge to neural models of memory storage and retrieval, which must be able to account for such a large and detailed storage capacity.
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Humans have immense memory capacity that may not be accounted for by current models.
“This is a significant issue for neuroscience because humans have immense memory capacity (Standing 1973, Brady et al. 2008) that may not be accounted for by current models.”
From A quantum microtubule substrate of consciousness is experimentally supported and solves the binding and epiphenomenalism problems (2025) · cites this paper as Brady et al. 2008
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- Authors
- Brady, T. F., Konkle, T., Alvarez, G. A., & Oliva, A.
- Affiliations
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology (US)
- Venue
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- Publisher
- National Academy of Sciences
- Published
- 2008-09-23
- Volume
- 105
- Issue
- 38
- Pages
- 14325-14329
- ISSN
- 0027-8424 (ISSN-L)
- 1091-6490
- PMC
- PMC2533687
- OpenAlex
- W2142978433
- Cited by
- 1,106
- References
- 48
- Citations by year
- 2026: 51 · 2025: 88 · 2024: 87 · 2023: 73 · 2022: 105 · 2021: 92 · 2020: 100 · 2019: 92 · 2018: 78 · 2017: 54 · 2016: 57 · 2015: 52 · 2014: 40 · 2013: 41 · 2012: 29
- FWCI
- 11.71
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Digital Access to Scholarship at Harvard (DASH) (Harvard University) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Funders
- National Science Foundation (0705677, 0546262)
- National Institutes of Health
- National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate
- National Institute of Mental Health (T32MH020007, R03MH068322)
- National Eye Institute (F32EY016982)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Memory Processes and Influences
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Memory and Neural Mechanisms
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Face Recognition and Perception
- Keywords
- visual long-term memory, memory capacity, object recognition, basic-level categories, object pose, memory interference, memory retrieval
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Humans, Pattern Recognition, Visual, Photic Stimulation, Time Factors, Recognition, Psychology
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