It is unknown whether visual memory capacity can develop if onset of pattern vision is delayed for several years following birth. We had an opportunity to address this question through our work with an unusual population of 12 congenitally blind individuals ranging in age from 8 to 22 years. After providing them with sight surgery, we longitudinally evaluated their visual memory capacity using an image-memorization task. Our findings revealed poor visual memory capacity soon after surgery but significant improvement in subsequent months. Although there may be limits to this improvement, performance 1 year after surgery was found to be comparable with that of control participants with matched visual acuity. These findings provide evidence for plasticity of visual memory mechanisms into late childhood but do not rule out vulnerability to early deprivation. Our computational simulations suggest that a potential mechanism to account for changes in memory performance may be progressive representational elaboration in image encoding.
BachM. (1996). The Freiburg Visual Acuity Test—automatic measurement of visual acuity. Optometry and Vision Science, 73(1), 49–53.
3.
Bellhouse-KingM. W.StandingL. G. (2007). Recognition memory for concrete, regular abstract, and diverse abstract pictures. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 104(3), 758–762.
4.
BraddickO.AtkinsonJ.Wattam-BellJ. (2003). Normal and anomalous development of visual motion processing: Motion coherence and ‘dorsal-stream vulnerability.’Neuropsychologia, 41(13), 1769–1784. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0028-3932(03)00178-7
5.
BradyT. F.KonkleT.AlvarezG. A. (2011). A review of visual memory capacity: Beyond individual items and toward structured representations. Journal of Vision, 11(5), Article 4. https://doi.org/10.1167/11.5.4
6.
BradyT. F.KonkleT.AlvarezG. A.OlivaA. (2008). Visual long-term memory has a massive storage capacity for object details. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA, 105(38), 14325–14329.
7.
BrainardD. H. (1997). The Psychophysics Toolbox. Spatial Vision, 10(4), 433–436.
8.
CobbS. R.MacDonaldC. F. (1978). Resolution acuity in astigmats: Evidence for a critical period in the human visual system. The British Journal of Physiological Optics, 32, 38–49.
9.
CowanN.AuBuchonA. M.GilchristA. L.RickerT. J.SaultsJ. S. (2011). Age differences in visual working memory capacity: Not based on encoding limitations. Developmental Science, 14(5), 1066–1074.
10.
EllembergD.LewisT. L.MaurerD.BrarS.BrentH. P. (2002). Better perception of global motion after monocular than after binocular deprivation. Vision Research, 42(2), 169–179.
11.
FagioliniM.PizzorussoT.BerardiN.DomeniciL.MaffeiL. (1994). Functional postnatal development of the rat primary visual cortex and the role of visual experience: Dark rearing and monocular deprivation. Vision Research, 34(6), 709–720.
12.
Fei-FeiL.FergusR.PeronaP. (2007). Learning generative visual models from few training examples: An incremental Bayesian approach tested on 101 object categories. Computer Vision and Image Understanding, 106(1), 59–70. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cviu.2005.09.012
13.
FerraraK.FurlongS.ParkS.LandauB. (2017). Detailed visual memory capacity is present early in childhood. Open Mind, 2(1), 14–25.
14.
FineI.WadeA. R.BrewerA. A.MayM. G.GoodmanD. F.BoyntonG. M.WandellB. A.MacLeodD. I. A. (2003). Long-term deprivation affects visual perception and cortex. Nature Neuroscience, 6(9), 915–916. https://doi.org/10.1038/nn1102
15.
GaneshS.AroraP.SethiS.GandhiT. K.KaliaA.ChatterjeeG.SinhaP. (2014). Results of late surgical intervention in children with early-onset bilateral cataracts. British Journal of Ophthalmology, 98(10), 1424–1428.
16.
GayetS.PaffenC. L.Van der StigchelS. (2018). Visual working memory storage recruits sensory processing areas. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 22(3), 189–190.
17.
GregoryR. L.WallaceJ. G. (1963). Recovery from early blindness: A case study. Experimental Psychology Society Monograph, 2, 65–129.
18.
HubelD. H.WieselT. N. (1970). The period of susceptibility to the physiological effects of unilateral eye closure in kittens. The Journal of Physiology, 206(2), 419–436.
19.
JonesD.WestallC.AverbeckK.AbdolellM. (2003). Visual acuity assessment: A comparison of two tests for measuring children’s vision. Ophthalmic and Physiological Optics, 23(6), 541–546.
20.
KaliaA.GandhiT.ChatterjeeG.SwamiP.DhillonH.BiS.ChauhanN.Das GuptaS.SharmaP.SoodS.GaneshS.MathurU.SinhaP. (2017). Assessing the impact of a program for late surgical intervention in early blind children. Public Health, 146, 15–23.
21.
KaliaA.LesmesL. A.DorrM.GandhiT.ChatterjeeG.GaneshS.BexP. J.SinhaP. (2014). Development of pattern vision following early and extended blindness. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA, 111(5), 2035–2039. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1311041111
22.
KrizhevskyA.SutskeverI.HintonG. E. (2012). ImageNet classification with deep convolutional neural networks. Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems, 25, 1097–1105.
23.
Le GrandR.MondlochC. J.MaurerD.BrentH. P. (2001). Early visual experience and face processing. Nature, 410(6831), Article 890. https://doi.org/10.1038/35073749
24.
LewisT. L.MaurerD. (2005). Multiple sensitive periods in human visual development: Evidence from visually deprived children. Developmental Psychobiology, 46(3), 163–183.
25.
LoomisJ. M.KlatzkyR. L.McHughB.GiudiceN. A. (2012). Spatial working memory for locations specified by vision and audition: Testing the amodality hypothesis. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 74(6), 1260–1267.
26.
MadiganS. (2014). Picture memory. In YuilleJ. C. (Ed.), Imagery, memory and cognition: Essays in honor of Allan Paivio (pp. 65–89). Psychology Press.
27.
MaurerD.LewisT. L.MondlochC. J. (2005). Missing sights: Consequences for visual cognitive development. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 9(3), 144–151.
28.
MaurerD.MondlochC. J.LewisT. L. (2007). Effects of early visual deprivation on perceptual and cognitive development. Progress in Brain Research, 164, 87–104.
29.
McCarthyR. A.WarringtonE. K. (1988). Evidence for modality-specific meaning systems in the brain. Nature, 334(6181), 428–430.
30.
NickersonR. S. (1965). Short-term memory for complex meaningful visual configurations: A demonstration of capacity. Canadian Journal of Psychology, 19(2), 155–160. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0082899
31.
OdellN. V.LeskeD. A.HattS. R.AdamsW. E.HolmesJ. M. (2008). The effect of Bangerter filters on optotype acuity, Vernier acuity, and contrast sensitivity. Journal of American Association for Pediatric Ophthalmology and Strabismus, 12(6), 555–559.
RiggsK. J.McTaggartJ.SimpsonA.FreemanR. P. (2006). Changes in the capacity of visual working memory in 5- to 10-year-olds. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 95(1), 18–26.
35.
RoseS. A.FeldmanJ. F.JankowskiJ. J. (2001). Visual short-term memory in the first year of life: Capacity and recency effects. Developmental Psychology, 37(4), 539–549.
36.
Ross-SheehyS.OakesL. M.LuckS. J. (2003). The development of visual short-term memory capacity in infants. Child Development, 74(6), 1807–1822.
37.
RunyanJ. D.MooreA. N.DashP. K. (2004). A role for prefrontal cortex in memory storage for trace fear conditioning. The Journal of Neuroscience, 24(6), 1288–1295.
38.
SacksO. (1995). An anthropologist on Mars: Seven paradoxical tales. Vintage Books.
39.
SchumacherE. H.LauberE.AwhE.JonidesJ.SmithE. E.KoeppeR. A. (1996). PET evidence for an amodal verbal working memory system. NeuroImage, 3(2), 79–88.
40.
ShepardR. N. (1967). Recognition memory for words, sentences, and pictures. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 6(1), 156–163.
41.
SimmeringV. R. (2012). The development of visual working memory capacity during early childhood. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 111(4), 695–707.
42.
SinhaP. (2013). Once blind and now they see. Scientific American, 309(1), 48–55.
SlotnickS. D. (2004). Visual memory and visual perception recruit common neural substrates. Behavioral and Cognitive Neuroscience Reviews, 3(4), 207–221.
45.
SmithG. (2006). Refraction and visual acuity measurements: What are their measurement uncertainties?Clinical and Experimental Optometry, 89(2), 66–72.
46.
StandingL. (1973). Learning 10000 pictures. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 25(2), 207–222.
47.
StandingL.ConezioJ.HaberR. N. (1970). Perception and memory for pictures: Single-trial learning of 2500 visual stimuli. Psychonomic Science, 19(2), 73–74.
48.
TusaR. J.RepkaM. X.SmithC. B.HerdmanS. J. (1991). Early visual deprivation results in persistent strabismus and nystagmus in monkeys. Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science, 32(1), 134–141.
49.
ValvoA. (1971). Sight restoration after long-term blindness: The problems and behavior patterns of visual rehabilitation. American Foundation for the Blind.
50.
von SendenM. (1960). Space and sight: The perception of space and shape in the congenitally blind before and after operation. Methuen.
51.
WalkerP.HitchG. J.DoyleA.PorterT. (1994). The development of short-term visual memory in young children. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 17(1), 73–89.
52.
WolbersT.KlatzkyR. L.LoomisJ. M.WutteM. G.GiudiceN. A. (2011). Modality-independent coding of spatial layout in the human brain. Current Biology, 21, 984–989.
53.
YuilleJ. C. (Ed.) (2014). Imagery, memory and cognition: Essays in honor of Allan Paivio. Psychology Press.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
