Texture and visual memory span capacities are dissociable.

Experiencing and remembering objects using the sense of touch is an important aspect of our interactions with our environment, but the cognitive processes of long-term tactile memory for surface textures have not previously been studied. We administered a novel tactile texture memory span task, which required participants to identify new textures among a constantly increasing set of previously experienced stimuli. Performance on that task was compared to a span task employing novel visual objects.