# Visual memory

**Authors:** Geoffrey F. Woodman, Sean M. Polyn

PMC · DOI: 10.3758/s13414-025-03214-3 · Attention, Perception & Psychophysics · 2026-02-23

## TL;DR

This tutorial reviews how visual memory helps us adapt by storing and linking visual information over time.

## Contribution

The paper provides a comprehensive review of visual memory storage types and their properties.

## Key findings

- Visual memory storage processes start immediately upon seeing a stimulus and last for decades.
- Different memory storage types vary in capacity and resolution.
- Memories actively shape how we interpret and store new visual information.

## Abstract

Visual memory allows us to behave adaptively in the world we live. In this tutorial we will review the types of visual memory storage that have been identified. These storage processes begin the instant a visual stimulus appears and continue through to remembering objects and scenes that were encountered decades ago. The different types of memory storage have different properties of capacity and resolution. We will discuss how our memories allow us to link new information to information that we have acquired across our life spans. We will also discuss how this linking between new information and previously acquired visual information is an active process, in which memories shape how we interpret and store new visual inputs.

## Full-text entities

- **Diseases:** inattentional blindness (MESH:D001308), epilepsy (MESH:D004827), trauma (MESH:D014947), anterograde amnesia (MESH:D020324), H.M.'s seizures (MESH:C566367), cognitive decline (MESH:D003072), car crash (MESH:C536029), seizures (MESH:D012640)
- **Chemicals:** Ernie (-)
- **Species:** Felis catus (cat, species) [taxon 9685], Homo sapiens (human, species) [taxon 9606], Canis lupus familiaris (dog, subspecies) [taxon 9615], Oryctolagus cuniculus (domestic rabbit, species) [taxon 9986]

## Full text

_Full body text omitted from this summary view._ Fetch the complete paper as Markdown: https://tomesphere.com/paper/PMC12929288/full.md

## Figures

11 figures with captions in the complete paper: https://tomesphere.com/paper/PMC12929288/full.md

## References

15 references — full list in the complete paper: https://tomesphere.com/paper/PMC12929288/full.md

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Source: https://tomesphere.com/paper/PMC12929288