The Retrieval and Manipulation of Visual Memories: Evidence from Neuropsychology

© 2008 by Steven J. Luck and Andrew Hollingworth. All rights reserved. This chapter discusses neuropsychological disorders of visual short-term memory (VSTM) and the importance of these disorders for theories of VSTM. It emphasizes the role of VSTM not only in "bottom-up" processes (forming a memory for new material from the environment) but also in "top-down" processing, as when visual images are formed from material from long-term memory (LTM). It is argued that just as VSTM is involved when we need to remember new visual input, so visual imagery recruits VSTM, which then serves as a medium for retrieving stored visual memories. Thus, the same processes (and brain regions) that play a part in typical laboratory studies of VSTM using relatively simple visual displays may also be involved when people make judgments about the visual characteristics of objects retrieved from LTM.