Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!ncrlnk!ncr-sd!hp-sdd!hplabs!hpda!hpcuhb!hp-sde!hpcea!hpcehfe!paul
From: paul@hpcehfe.HP.COM (Paul Sorenson)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Lightbulbs and Related Thoughts
Message-ID: <930001@hpcehfe.HP.COM>
Date: 21 Nov 88 23:56:31 GMT
References: <1020@rlgvax.UUCP>
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Corporate Engineering Human Factors
Lines: 27

/ hpcehfe:comp.ai / lammens@sunybcs.uucp (Johan Lammens) /  7:42 am  Nov 14, 1988 /
In article <778@wsccs.UUCP> dharvey@wsccs.UUCP (David Harvey) writes:
>Don't forget to include the iconic memory.  This is the buffers
>so to speak of our sensory processes.  I am sure that you have
>saw many aspects of this phenomenon by now.  Examples are staring
>at a flag of the United States for 30 seconds, then observing the
>complementary colors of the flag if you then look at a blank wall
>(usually works best if the wall is dark).  [...]

Perhaps this question is a witness to my ignorance, but isn't the phenomenon
you describe a result of the way the retina processes images, and if
so, do you mean to say that iconic memory is located in the retina?

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Jo Lammens     Internet:  lammens@cs.Buffalo.EDU
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No, you are correct and the example is wrong.  Color after images like
those described are NOT instances of iconic memory.  Iconic memory is a
theoretical stage of memory, patterned after short term memory, that
functions as a limited capacity storage buffer for sensory information
(just as STM serves as a limited [7 + or - 2] capacity storage for
information prior to its being encoded into "Long Term Memory").
Presumably, Iconic memory preceeds STM, which preceeds LTM, which
preceeds....(forgetting, making it up,?).