Visual memory is conceptual and visual search is perceptual: how meaning and expertise may confirm this hypothesis?

The purpose of this study was to evaluate how stimulus meaning and subject’s expertise differentially influence visual memory and visual search. In order to answer this question, 20 novices and 20 experts (art historians) performed both long term visual memory (LTVM) and visual search tasks with abstract and non-abstract stimuli (paintings). In the LTVM task, subjects were presented 100 abstract and 100 non-abstract paintings and after each stimuli set presentation, they performed a 3-forced-choice recognition test. In the visual search task, subjects had to find targets as quickly as possible in abstract or non-abstract paintings. Our data showed experts performed better than novices in LTVM task for both abstract and non-abstract stimuli, whereas novices and experts had a similar performance in the visual search task. This result suggests expertise and thus previous knowledge about the stimulus increase memory performance but not visual search performance. Concerning the type of stimulus, performance in LTVM with non-abstract paintings was better than with abstract paintings while the contrary was observed in the visual search task. Stimulus meaning is thus a significant factor for visual memory (as also shown by Chatterjee et al., JOV, 2008) but not for visual search. In conclusion, our findings suggest stimulus meaning and subject’s expertise influence VLTM but not visual search. These results confirm that VLTM is rather conceptual and influenced by top-down processes (like meaning and expertise) while visual search is rather perceptive and influenced by bottom-up processes (as suggested by Konkle, JEP, in press).