A behavioural investigation of human visual short term memory for colour

• Published in: Ophthalmic & physiological optics 2010-09, Vol.30 (5), p.594-601
• Main Authors: Nemes, V. A., Parry, N. R. A., McKeefry, D. J.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adult; Biological and medical sciences; Color Perception - physiology; colour appearance; colour memory; colour vision; cone-opponency; Eye and associated structures. Visual pathways and centers. Vision; Female; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Humans; Male; Medical sciences; Memory, Short-Term - physiology; Ophthalmology; Photic Stimulation - methods; Psychophysics; Retinal Cone Photoreceptor Cells - physiology; Time Factors; Vertebrates: nervous system and sense organs; visual short-term memory
• ISSN: 0275-5408; 1475-1313
• DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-1313.2010.00772.x

We examined visual short term memory (VSTM) for colour using a delayed‐match‐to‐sample paradigm. In these experiments we measured the effects of increasing inter‐stimulus interval (ISI), varying between 0 and 10 s, on the ability of five colour normal human observers to make colour matches between a reference and subsequently presented test stimuli. The coloured stimuli used were defined by different chromatic axes on the isoluminant plane of DKL colour space. In preliminary experiments we used a hue scaling procedure to identify a total of 12 colour stimuli which served as reference hues in the colour memory experiments: four stimuli were exemplars of red, green, blue and yellow colour appearance categories, four were located between these categories and a further four were located on the cardinal axes that isolated the activity of the cone‐opponent mechanisms. Our results demonstrate that there is a reduction in the ability of observers to make accurate colour matches with increasing ISIs and that this reduced performance was similar for all colour stimuli. However, the shifts in hue that were measured between the reference and matched test stimuli were significantly greater for the cardinal stimuli compared to those measured for the stimuli defined by the hue scaling procedure. This deterioration in the retention of hue in VSTM for stimuli that isolate cone‐opponent mechanisms may be a reflection of the reorganisation of colour processing that occurs in the cortex where colour appearance mechanisms become more prominent.