ABSTRACT
In 1960, George Sperling published his investigations of the information available in brief visual presentations. One of the major findings was the existence of a brief visual storage that lasts for a few tenths of a second. U. Neisser labeled this visual storage 'iconic memory' and the label has become well accepted. This chapter reviews the history of iconic memory research with the goal of outlining the experimental procedures that have been used in its study. It discusses some attentional components involved in experimental tasks that have been employed to study iconic memory. The chapter begins with a discussion of investigations of iconic memory and aging, it seems appropriate to discuss more fully the recent work by B. Sakitt. Sakitt, in a series of investigations, has presented strong evidence that the rods may serve as the locus of iconic storage. Finally, results of work on age differences in attention mechanisms and propose some problems for further investigation.
