The visual paired-comparison task as a measure of declarative memory

Performance on the visual paired-comparison task depends on the integrity of the hippocampal formation in humans, monkeys, and, for an analogous task, in rats. The present study sought additional evidence in healthy volunteers concerning the nature of this task. We found that performance on the visual paired-comparison task was predictive of subsequent recognition memory performance whereas perceptual priming was unrelated to subsequent recognition memory performance. The results are consistent with the data from lesions and suggest that performance on the visual paired-comparison task measures a form of declarative memory.