Visual recognition memory does not benefit from preserved temporal order from encoding to test

Research suggests that items from similar spatiotemporal contexts are more likely to be retrieved together. Here, we sought to test whether preserving temporal order from encoding to test might lead to a retrieval benefit. Then, we tested the participants using test items that were either presented in the same order as during encoding, or the order of items was different due to it being randomized. Across two experiments, we found that maintaining the same temporal order did not improve overall memory performance in the visual old/new recognition task we used. Next, we show that conditional-response probability plots demonstrate temporal grouping from the study order, but the strength of that grouping was unmodulated by whether the same order or a random order was used during recognition testing. Lastly, we used a two-alternative forced-choice task and again found that presenting old items in their original order, without intervening new items, did not enhance recognition memory performance. Thus, we find that for visually presented common objects tested with recognition, we do not see that the same order boosts participants' ability to retrieve a sequence of visual objects from memory.