Object recognition ability predicts episodic location memory, enhanced by meaningfulness

Abstract People differ in their ability to distinguish visually similar items, a domain-general ability known as o (Richler et al., 2019). While o typically involves extracting invariant object properties, we investigated whether it also relates to long-term memory for episodic information extrinsic to object identity, specifically, object location. We further examined whether this relationship is influenced by stimulus meaningfulness, a factor known to enhance long-term memory, by using both high- and low-meaning stimuli. Participants completed a location memory test, a series of visual object-recognition tasks assessing o, and other cognitive covariate measures. Results showed a positive correlation between o and location memory, which was stronger for high-meaning than for low-meaning stimuli. This suggests that semantic content may enhance the link between object recognition and episodic location memory. Importantly, these effects remained after controlling for age, gender, low-level visual perception, working memory, and general intelligence. Our findings indicate that domain-general object recognition ability contributes to episodic memory by supporting the binding of meaningful objects to their spatial context. This challenges traditional cognitive boundaries by integrating current knowledge about individual differences in perception and memory, with semantic meaning acting as a significant moderator.