An initial search for visual overshadowing

A consistent, albeit fragile, finding over the last couple of decades has been that verbalization of hard-to-verbalize stimuli, such as faces, interferes with subsequent recognition of the described target stimulus. We sought to elicit a similar phenomenon whereby visualization interferes with verbal recognition—that is, visual overshadowing. We randomly assigned participants (n?=?180) to either concrete (easy to visualize) or abstract (difficult to visualize) sentence conditions. Following presentation, participants were asked to verbalize the sentence, visualize the sentence, or work on a filler task. As predicted, visualization of an abstract verbal stimulus resulted in significantly lower recognition accuracy; unexpectedly, however, so did verbalization. The findings are discussed within the framework of fuzzy-trace theory.     

Dissociating positive and negative influences of verbal processing on the recognition of pictures of faces and objects

Four experiments investigated the role of verbal processing in the recognition of pictures of faces and objects. We used (a) a stimulus-encoding task where participants learned sequentially presented pictures in control, articulatory suppression, and describe conditions and then engaged in an old-new picture recognition test and (b) a poststimulus-encoding task where participants learned the stimuli without any secondary task and then either described or not a single item from memory before the recognition test. The main findings were as follows: First, verbalization influenced picture recognition. Second, there were contrasting influences of verbalization on the recognition of faces, compared with objects, that were driven by (a) the stage of processing during which verbalization took place (as assessed by the stimulus-encoding and poststimulus-encoding tasks), (b) whether verbalization was subvocal (whereby one goes through the motions of speaking but without making any sound) or overt, and (c) stimulus familiarity. During stimulus encoding there was a double dissociation whereby subvocal verbalization interfered with the recognition of faces but not objects, while overt verbalization benefited the recognition of objects but not faces. In addition, stimulus familiarity provided an independent and beneficial influence on performance. Post stimulus encoding, overt verbalization interfered with the recognition of both faces and objects, and this interference was apparent for unfamiliar but not familiar stimuli. Together these findings extend work on verbalization to picture recognition and place important parameters on stimulus and task constraints that contribute to contrasting beneficial and detrimental effects of verbalization on recognition memory.     

Verbal overshadowing of visual memories: some things are better left unsaid

It is widely believed that verbal processing generally improves memory performance. However, in a series of six experiments, verbalizing the appearance of previously seen visual stimuli impaired subsequent recognition performance. In Experiment 1, subjects viewed a videotape including a salient individual. Later, some subjects described the individual's face. Subjects who verbalized the face performed less well on a subsequent recognition test than control subjects who did not engage in memory verbalization. The results of Experiment 2 replicated those of Experiment 1 and further clarified the effect of memory verbalization by demonstrating that visualization does not impair face recognition. In Experiments 3 and 4 we explored the hypothesis that memory verbalization impairs memory for stimuli that are difficult to put into words. In Experiment 3 memory impairment followed the verbalization of a different visual stimulus: color. In Experiment 4 marginal memory improvement followed the verbalization of a verbal stimulus: a brief spoken statement. In Experiments 5 and 6 the source of verbally induced memory impairment was explored. The results of Experiment 5 suggested that the impairment does not reflect a temporary verbal set, but rather indicates relatively long-lasting memory interference. Finally, Experiment 6 demonstrated that limiting subjects' time to make recognition decisions alleviates the impairment, suggesting that memory verbalization overshadows but does not eradicate the original visual memory. This collection of results is consistent with a recording interference hypothesis: verbalizing a visual memory may produce a verbally biased memory representation that can interfere with the application of the original visual memory.     

The role of imagery in recognition memory for sentences

The effects of sentence imageability were examined in a test of continuous recognition memory following meaningful orienting tasks which emphasized verbal or imagery encoding. The results showed that distractors changed in syntactic form were more accurately identified for abstract than for concrete sentences, while memory for meaning was equally accurate for both sentence types. The orienting task manipulation did not affect this pattern of results. These data extend previous reports (Begg and Paivio 1969) by demonstrating qualitative differences in memory for concrete and abstract sentences when full comprehension of the stimulus material is required. The results are consistent with the dual coding hypothesis (Paivio 1971) but not with propositional models of memory (Anderson and Bower 1973).     

Verbal facilitation effects instead of verbal overshadowing in face memory of 4- to 6-year olds

Research on eye witness memory in older children and adults revealed that verbally describing unfamiliar faces impairs later recognition of these faces, known as the “verbal overshadowing effect”. The aim of this study was to investigate whether a verbal overshadowing effect occurs in 4- to 6-year olds, too, and whether visualization (i.e., drawing the seen face) might elicit a visual overshadowing effect. Instead of a verbal overshadowing effect, a verbal facilitation effect was revealed with verbal intelligence being a significant predictor for recognition accuracy in the verbalization group but not in the control group. No effect of visualization was observed on recognition accuracy. Potential explanations for the results are discussed.     

语词遮蔽效应的研究及其理论

语词遮蔽效应（verbal overshadowing effect,VOE）是指语词化描述对非语言认知的阻碍效应。研究者发现影响语词遮蔽效应的因素有：时间因素、言语描述任务、分心任务、再认测验、个体差异等。现有的有关语词遮蔽效应的解释理论有三种：记录干扰理论、不合适的加工转换迁移理论和标准转换理论。未来的研究应着重探讨言语描述影响了知觉内容还是提取线索等内容     

Perceptual and conceptual training mediate the verbal overshadowing effect in an unfamiliar domain

Describing memory for a nonverbal perceptual stimulus can impair recognition. This verbal overshadowing effect may occur when perceptual expertise exceeds verbal expertise, but previous evidence for this hypothesis has been strictly correlational. We conducted two experiments, exploring the relation between expertise and verbal overshadowing by manipulating perceptual and conceptual knowledge. Participants received perceptual training (categorizing mushrooms), conceptual training (lecture), or no training, then viewed a mushroom and described it or not. A recognition test followed. In Experiment 1, perceptual training increased susceptibility to verbalization relative to the no training condition. However, conceptual training did not insulate individuals from the verbal overshadowing effect. Experiment 2 was modified to enhance both forms of training. It replicated the finding that perceptual training increases vulnerability to verbal overshadowing, and indicated that, when sufficiently emphasized, verbalization may be useful following conceptual training. The results demonstrate the role that different forms of learning and expertise may play in mediating language influences on recognition memory.     

Remembering environmental sounds: The role of verbalization at input

Two experiments investigated the role of verbalization in memory for environmental sounds. Experiment i extended earlier research (Bower & Holyoak, 1973) showing that sound recognition is highly dependent upon consistent verbal interpretation at input and test. While such a finding implies an important role for verbalization, Experiment 2 suggested that verbalization is not the only efficacious strategy for encoding environmental sounds. Recognition after presentation of sounds was shown to differ qualitatively from recognition after presentation of sounds accompanied with interpretative verbal labels and from recognition after presentation of verbal labels alone. The results also suggest that encoding physical information about sounds is of greater importance for sound recognition than for verbal free recall, and that verbalization is of greater importance for free recall than for recognition. Several alternative frameworks for the results are presented, and separate retrieval and discrimination processes in recognition are proposed.     

The effect of pictorial context on sentence memory in Broca's and Wernicke's aphasia

Eighteen aphasic patients (8 Broca's and 10 Wernicke's aphasics), 11 right hemisphere damaged patients and 12 normal subjects were tested to assess the effect of pictorial context on verbal memory with a sentence recognition task. The subjects were read aloud a stimulus sentence describing a simple event and simultaneously shown a picture congruent or incongruent with the sentence. Immediately following or after an interval of 30 sec, the subjects were read aloud a second sentence and asked to judge whether this sentence was the same or different from the stimulus sentence. The results indicated that verbal memory was better retained in supportive situations than in distracting situations, and that this contextual effect was greater in aphasic patients than in any of the other groups. Verbal memory declined rapidly after an interval in aphasic patients, but not in normal subjects. The Broca's and the Wernicke's aphasics demonstrated different performance patterns when semantic analysis of sentences was critical.     

A developmental study of facilitation by mnemonic instruction

First- and fourth-grade children, as well as adults, were given mnemonic instructions to image or to verbalize a sentence in order to study either a sentence or a noun pair provided aurally. Uninstructed control subjects also were included at each age level. A test of cued recall evaluated the amount of facilitation by mnemonic instruction in each of the groups. Both types of instruction enhanced children's memory, most notably when verbal pairs served as stimuli. However, whereas first graders under imagery instruction were inferior on pairs relative to sentence stimuli, fourth graders and adults recalled the two stimulus types equivalently. Also, whereas first graders performed at the same level on sentences and pairs under the verbalization instruction, fourth graders were superior on the pairs. These results indicate that greater requirements for subject-generated mediation to some degree penalized the younger subjects and benefited the older ones.     

A Certain Je Ne Sais Quoi

People's evaluations of stimuli may change when they verbally attempt to communicate the reasons underlying their judgments. The reported experiments demonstrate the interactive influence of expertise, verbalizability (i.e., the ease with which stimulus features can be linguistically encoded), and appraisal mode in the verbalization bias phenomenon. In Experiment 1, art novices and experts rated their liking of artworks with compositional features that were easy (e.g., figurative–naturalistic) or difficult (e.g., abstract) to verbalize. When asked to verbalize the reasons underlying their judgments, novices assigned lower ratings to abstract but not figurative works. Experts, in contrast, were not influenced by the verbalization manipulation. Experiment 2 explored the possibility that verbalization bias is attributable to a componential appraisal mode that verbalization induces, rather than the specific reasons that people articulate. We found that verbalizing reasons for liking or disliking one abstract work influenced art novices' judgments of a second work for which they did not attempt to verbalize reasons. Moreover, those who merely attempted to verbalize their perceptual experiences also exhibited this contamination effect. The results of both studies suggest that verbalizing the attributes of complex stimuli can significantly alter the way we evaluate these stimuli.     

Mental animation in the visuospatial sketchpad: Evidence from dual-task studies

We used the dual-task paradigm to provide evidence that inferring the motion of a component of a mechanical system (mental animation) is a spatial visualization process. In two experiments, participants were asked to solve mental animation problems while simultaneously retaining either a visuospatial working memory load (a configuration of dots in a grid) or a verbal memory load (a list of letters). Both experiments showed that mental animation interferes more with memory for a concurrent visuospatial load than with memory for a verbal load. Experiment 1 also showed that a visuospatial working memory load interferes more with mental animation than does a verbal memory load. Furthermore, Experiment 2 showed that mental animation interferes more with a visuospatial memory load than does a verbal reasoning task that takes approximately the same amount of time.     

Recognition of Concrete and abstract Pictures as a Function of Poststimulus Interval

This study examined picture recognition of concrete common objects and abstract random shapes under two presentation conditions: The durations of the unfilled intervals (off-time duration) that followed the presentation of the pictures were varied either randomly or in blocks. The major findings were: (a) recognition of the concrete pictures was better than recognition of random shapes, (b) the off-time duration did not influence recognition of either type of picture under the random presentation condition, and (c) under the block presentation condition, recognition of the concrete pictures increased as a function of off-time duration, whereas the effect of off-time duration was not found for the abstract shapes. The results were interpreted as suggesting that a longer off-time duration is necessary for abstract shapes so that stimulus differentiation, verbal encoding, visual analogizing, and rehearsing may be utilized in processing.     

Verbal labeling as an assimilation mnemonic for abstract visual stimuli: The sample case of recognition memory for Chinese characters

In four experiments, we examined the effect that presenting a verbal stimulus (viz., an English noun) alongside an abstract visual stimulus (viz., a Chinese character) enhances recognition memory for the abstract visual stimulus. Experiment 1 demonstrated that the character-plus-word combination at both encoding and retrieval results in better recognition than does a character-alone presentation or presenting the combination at encoding only. Experiment 2 demonstrated that presenting the word first and then the character results in better performance than does the opposite order. Experiment 3 showed that the concreteness value of the word, not familiarity, is the critical factor. In Experiment 4, presentation time was varied. More time was needed for liftoff from chance level for the word-character combination than for the character-alone presentation. Together, the results suggest that subjects spontaneously assimilate stimulus and word into a single representation by building asymmetric effortful imagery associations, going from the English word to the Chinese character.     

Recognition of concrete and abstract pictures as a function of poststimulus interval

This study examined picture recognition of concrete common objects and abstract random shapes under two presentation conditions: The durations of the unfilled intervals (off-time duration) that followed the presentation of the pictures were varied either randomly or in blocks. The major findings were: recognition of the concrete pictures was better than recognition of random shapes, the off-time duration did not influence recognition of either type of picture under the random presentation condition, and under the block presentation condition, recognition of the concrete pictures increased as a function of off-time duration, whereas the effect of off-time duration was not found for the abstract shapes. The results were interpreted as suggesting that a longer off-time duration is necessary for abstract shapes so that stimulus differentiation, verbal encoding, visual analogizing, and rehearsing may be utilized in processing.     

Visual recognition memory enhancement in children through differential outcomes

Objective

The use of differential outcomes has been shown to enhance discriminative learning and face recognition in children and adults. In this study, we further investigated whether the differential outcome procedure (DOP) would also be effective in improving recognition memory for a wide range of stimuli with varying visual complexity (familiar objects, abstract stimuli, and complex scenes) in 5- and 7-year-old children.

Method

Participants viewed a sample stimulus and, after a short (5 s) or a long (15 s) delay, they had to identify the previously seen stimulus among four choice alternatives. In the differential outcomes condition, each sample stimulus was paired with a specific outcome; whereas in the non-differential conditions outcomes were administered randomly. In Experiment 2, we replicated Experiment 1 but in addition we asked participants to perform an articulatory suppression task to prevent verbal rehearsal.

Results

Children showed a greater overall visual delayed recognition when differential outcomes were arranged in both experiments. The type of stimulus being used modulated this effect; a beneficial effect of the differential outcomes training was evident with abstract objects in Experiment 1 and with both, abstract objects and scenes in Experiment 2.     

Planning sentences while doing other things at the same time: effects of concurrent verbal and visuospatial working memory load

This study investigated to what extent advance planning during sentence production is affected by a concurrent cognitive load. In two picture–word interference experiments in which participants produced subject–verb–object sentences while ignoring auditory distractor words, we assessed advance planning at a phonological (lexeme) and at an abstract–lexical (lemma) level under visuospatial or verbal working memory (WM) load. At the phonological level, subject and object nouns were found to be activated before speech onset with concurrent visuospatial WM load, but only subject nouns were found to be activated with concurrent verbal WM load, indicating a reduced planning scope as a function of type of WM load (Experiment 1). By contrast, at the abstract–lexical level, subject and object nouns were found to be activated regardless of type of concurrent load (Experiment 2). In both experiments, sentence planning had a more detrimental effect on concurrent verbal WM task performance than on concurrent visuospatial WM task performance. Overall, our results suggest that advance planning at the phonological level is more affected by a concurrently performed verbal WM task than advance planning at the abstract–lexical level. Also, they indicate an overlap of resources allocated to phonological planning in speech production and verbal WM.