Art and memory: meaning over style

Do people better remember the subject or style of an artwork? People saw images of art in various styles. One week later, memory was tested via four-choice recognition. The choices included the piece viewed a week earlier (correct), a new image of the same subject but in different style, a new image of a different subject but in same style, and finally, a new image of a different subject and in a different style. We were particularly interested in the errors people made for incorrect images. People were more likely to select an image of the same subject in a different style than the other two options (which did not differ). This suggests that memory for art is preferentially stored in terms of its meaning, not its appearance. Our findings parallel work in text memory showing that people use a memory of the described situation rather than its surface features.