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J M Yeomans

Publications and source records attributed to J M Yeomans.

4 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1991

Duration of visible persistence in relation to stimulus complexity.

Visible persistence refers to the phenomenal impression that a stimulus is still present after its offset. A dispute exists whether visible persistence is due to temporal sluggishness in the visual pathway (neural hypothesis) or whether it is a byproduct of information-extraction processes under cognitive control (process hypothesis). This was investigated by manipulating stimulus complexity in five temporal integration experiments and one recognition memory experiment. According to the process hypothesis, complex stimuli should persist longer than simple stimuli because they require more information extraction. This prediction was not confirmed; in all six experiments, complexity was found to have no reliable effect on the duration of visible persistence. By contrast, and in accordance with earlier findings, complexity was shown to have a significant effect on a short-lived, nonvisible form of memory known as schematic persistenc. This pattern of results supports two major conclusions: First, that the effects of complexity reported in earlier research were probably on schematic--rather than visible--persistence; and second, that visible persistence must be regarded as a residual neural trace of an extinguished stimulus, rather than as a byproduct of information-extraction processes.

Adult↗
PubMed1986

Sensory registration and informational persistence.

The traditional view of iconic memory as a precategorical, high-capacity, quickly decaying visible memory has recently come under attack (e.g., Coltheart, 1980). Specifically, distinctions have been drawn between visible persistence, or the phenomenal trace of an extinguished stimulus, and informational persistence, knowledge about the visual properties of the stimulus. In the present research we tested two alternative conceptions of informational persistence. One conception is that visual information persists in a visual memory that begins at stimulus offset and lasts for 150-300 ms, independently of exposure duration. The second is that informational persistence arises from a nonvisual memory that contains spatial coordinates for displayed items along with identity codes for those items. Three experiments were conducted in which 3 X 3 letter arrays were presented for durations ranging from 50 to 500 ms. A single character mask presented at varying intervals after array offset cued report of an entire row of the array. Comparison of the cued row's masked and unmasked letters revealed that spatially-specific visual (i.e., maskable) information persisted after stimulus offset, regardless of exposure duration. This result favors the visual conception of informational persistence. But there was also support for the nonvisual conception: Accuracy increased and item intrusion errors decreased as stimulus duration increased. The implications of these results for models of informational persistence and for transsaccadic integration during reading are discussed.

Cues↗