Repetition and laterality effects on recognition memory for words and pictures*

Recognition memory for a list of words was tested by presenting a series of items with Ss instructed to make positive responses to targets (list items) and negative responses to distractors (nonlist items). The test items were either words or pictures, and they were presented tachistoscopically either to the left or right visual field. The results showed mean response latencies to be generally faster for stimuli presented to the right visual field. Response times were faster for target and distractor stimuli on their second test presentations than on initial tests, but this effect was much larger for targets. Repetitions were shown to decrease the amount of time necessary to execute the stimulus encoding and initial retrieval stages of recognition. This was also true, although to a lesser extent, if different stimulus forms (words or pictures) were used on the two tests. Subsequent recognition stages, including memory search and decision processes. were apparently independent of test stimulus form.     

The effect of orienting activity on memory for pictures and words in children and adults

Second and fifth grade children and adults were shown either pictures or words to study, and were tested with both pictures and words in a forced-choice recognition task. Prior to presentation of each study item, subjects were asked questions designed to orient them to the acoustic, schematic, or conceptual characteristics of the item, or were asked no questions at all (neutral condition). In addition, at recognition, each study item (target) was paired with a distractor related to the target either acoustically, schematically, conceptually, or not at all (neutral). The results show that deficits in the kinds of encoding operations performed are not responsible for developmental differences in memory performance, but suggest that young children differ from adults in terms of focused attention and direct access to semantic representations.     

Aging and recognition memory for emotional words: A bias account

The present study investigated age-related differences in the locus of the emotional enhancement effect in recognition memory. Younger and older adults studied an emotion-heterogeneous list followed by a forced choice recognition memory test. Luce’s (1963) similarity choice model was used to assess whether emotional valence impacts memory sensitivity or response bias. Results revealed that the emotional enhancement effect in both age groups was due to a more liberal response bias for emotional words. However, the pattern of bias differed, with younger adults more willing to classify negative words as old and older adults more willing to classify positive words as old. The results challenge the conclusion that emotional words are more memorable than neutral words.     

Storage and retrieval properties of dual codes for pictures and words in recognition memory.

Storage and retrieval properties of pictures and words were studied within a recognition memory paradigm. Storage was manipulated by instructing subjects either to image or to verbalize to both picture and word stimuli during the study sequence. Retrieval was manipulated by representing a proportion of the old picture and word items in their opposite form during the recognition test (i.e., some old pictures were tested with their corresponding words and vice versa). Recognition performance for pictures was identical under the two instructional conditions, whereas recognition performance for words was markedly superior under the imagery instruction condition. It was suggested that subjects may engage in dual coding of simple pictures naturally, regardless of instructions, whereas dual coding of words may occur only under imagery instructions. The form of the test item had no effect on recognition performance for either type of stimulus and under either instructional condition. However, change of form of the test item markedly reduced item-by-item correlations between the two instructional conditions. It is tentatively proposed that retrieval is required in recognition, but that the effect of a form change is simply to make the retrieval process less consistent, not less efficient.     

The effect of normative context variability on recognition memory

According to some theories of recognition memory (e.g., S. Dennis & M. S. Humphreys, 2001), the number of different contexts in which words appear determines how memorable individual occurrences of words will be: A word that occurs in a small number of different contexts should be better recognized than a word that appears in a larger number of different contexts. To empirically test this prediction, a normative measure is developed, referred to here as context variability, that estimates the number of different contexts in which words appear in everyday life. These findings confirm the prediction that words low in context variability are better recognized (on average) than words that are high in context variability.     

Sex differences in memory estimates for pictures and words

Memory performance estimates of men and women before and after a recall test were investigated. College students (17 men and 20 women), all juniors, participated in a memory task involving the recall of 80 stimuli (40 pictures and 40 words). Before and after the task they were asked to provide estimates of their pre- and postrecall performance. Although no sex differences were found for total correct recall, recall for pictures, and recall for words, or in the estimates of memory performance before the recall task, there were significant differences after the test: women underestimated their performance on the words and men underestimated their performance on the picture items.     

Monkeys' recognition memory for complex pictures and the effect of fornix transection

Two monkeys were trained in a running-recognition task with complex pictures. The task was made gradually more difficult by increasing the number of intervening items between the first and second presentation of the same picture. Before undergoing an operation in which the fornix was transected, both monkeys performed above 90% correct even in the most difficult task set, with up to 18 intervening items. After operation neither monkey could reliably perform a much easier task with only 2.7 intervening items on average. This impairment is comparable to that of human amnesic patients in similar tasks.     

Interactive visual imagery and memory search for words and pictures

In a short-term recognition memory experiment with words, subjects: (1) subvocally rehearsed the words, (2) generated a separate visual image for each word, (3) generated an interactive scene with such images, or (4) composed a covert sentence using the words in the memory set. Contrary to Seamon's (1972) results in a similar study, a serial memory search was found in all conditions, instead of the simultaneous scan which was expected when items were combined in interactive images. In a second study with pictures as stimuli, subjects who generated imaginal interactions between separate pictures, viewed interacting pictures, or viewed separate pictures also showed a serial search, i.e., longer RTs were obtained when more stimuli were held m memory. Since interactive imagery facilitated performance in an unexpected paired-associate task with memory set stimuli, one can argue that subjects actually processed or generated such interactions. It was suggested that memory search might not be simultaneous in tasks where the test stimulus constitutes only part of a memory image.     

Relational information and the context effect in recognition memory

A role for relational information was examined for the paradigm in which recognition-memory performance on items tested in the same context in which they were studied is compared with performance on items tested in different contexts. Over a series of five experiments, randomly formed pairs were used to manipulate the context of high-frequency English words. Comparisons were made between instructional manipulations designed to influence the use of relational information, and between yes/no, confidence rating (both between- and within-subject), and forced-choice tasks. There was a context effect not due to the use of inappropriate response strategies. However, high-criterion subjects resembled those subjects who were specifically instructed to use relational information, while low-criterion subjects showed little or no context effect. A model specifying the relationship between item and relational information and how relational information influences decisions in recognition-memory paradigms was proposed.     

A bias in favor of the positive response to high-frequency words in recognition memory

A relatively liberal response bias for high-frequency words and a violation of the mirror effect for hit and false-alarm rates were found in a yes-no recognition-memory test. Subjects more frequently responded "old" to high-frequency words than to low-frequency words. Four experiments were conducted to determine the causes of the different response biases and of the violation of the mirror effect. The word-frequency effect on hit rates did not appear, whereas the false-alarm rate for low-frequency words was lower than that for high-frequency words. When low- or high-frequency words were presented separately in distinct halves of a recognition-memory test, the relatively liberal response bias for high-frequency words was diminished. A model for recognition judgment is proposed that assumes the use of a common criterion for low- and high-frequency words.     

Hypermnesia for pictures: Incremental memory for pictures but not words in multiple recall trials

Two studies are reported on multiple forced recall following a single visual presentation of a sequence of pictures or words. In both experiments, a hypermnesic memory function (in which performance improved with repeated recall) was obtained for pictures, while a flat, nonincremental function was obtained for words. Interpolation of intervals of thinking between recall trials further enhanced hypermnesia for pictorial items. Retrieval, whether overt (recall trials) or covert (thinking), apparently produces increased net recovery of pictures but not words.     

Signs as pictures and signs as words: effect of language knowledge on memory for new vocabulary

The role of sensory attributes in a vocabulary learning task was investigated for a non-oral language. Deaf and hearing individuals, more or less skilled in the use of sign language, were asked to learn the English meanings of 22 invented signs which followed the rules of formation for signs in American Sign Language. Each sign stimulus was highly similar in formation to another sign in the set. It was expected that skilled signers would be less affected by this formational similarity because of their greater familiarity with the linguistic structure of sign language. Furthermore, it was suggested that skilled signers would form a visual-linguistic code for the signs while unskilled signers would produce a code from general visual-pictorial processes. These representation differences were expected to lead to qualitatively different error patterns in response to sign similarity. All expectations were confirmed. Skilled signers encoded invented signs in terms of linguistic structure, while unskilled individuals approached the signs as visual-pictorial events. Although both codes are sensory, one reflects linguistic abstraction, and the other does not.     

Conceptual processes involved in words and scenes context effect in face recognition

ABSTRACT

Several studies have established the impact of conceptually similar context on the emergence of “Context-Effect” (CE). None of these studies included the Re-pair/rearrange condition at the test, which prevented them from being conclusive about the exact process (binding/ensemble or familiarity) that was affected by the conceptually similar context. To this end, in the present study faces (target to be remembered) were presented in the context of either words (W) or picture (P) scenes, and at test Re-pair was added as one of the context conditions. At test two groups were presented with the same context as in study (consistent condition) (WW & PP), and two groups with the inconsistent condition (WP & PW). Results showed no familiarity effect when only the conceptual match was preserved (i.e., inconsistent condition) and both effects of binding and familiarity when both conceptual and perceptual match were present (i.e., consistent condition). Thus, the semantic association between a face and context could serve as recognition cues even when modality has been changed, but the label remained constant.     

Memory bias for negative emotional words in recognition memory is driven by effects of category membership

Recognition memory studies often find that emotional items are more likely than neutral items to be labelled as studied. Previous work suggests this bias is driven by increased memory strength/familiarity for emotional items. We explored strength and bias interpretations of this effect with the conjecture that emotional stimuli might seem more familiar because they share features with studied items from the same category. Categorical effects were manipulated in a recognition task by presenting lists with a small, medium or large proportion of emotional words. The liberal memory bias for emotional words was only observed when a medium or large proportion of categorised words were presented in the lists. Similar, though weaker, effects were observed with categorised words that were not emotional (animal names). These results suggest that liberal memory bias for emotional items may be largely driven by effects of category membership.     

Effects of semantic context in the naming of pictures and words

Two experiments investigated whether lexical retrieval for speaking can be characterized as a competitive process by assessing the effects of semantic context on picture and word naming in German. In Experiment 1 we demonstrated that pictures are named slower in the context of same-category items than in the context of items from various semantic categories, replicating findings by Kroll and Stewart (Journal of Memory and Language, 33 (1994) 149). In Experiment 2 we used words instead of pictures. Participants either named the words in the context of same- or different-category items, or produced the words together with their corresponding determiner. While in the former condition words were named faster in the context of same-category items than of different-category items, the opposite pattern was obtained for the latter condition. These findings confirm the claim that the interfering effect of semantic context reflects competition in the retrieval of lexical entries in speaking.     

Retention interval modulates the effect of negative arousing pictures on recognition memory

This study examined the modulation of retention interval in the effect of emotion as elicited from negative and positive arousing pictures on recognition memory. Participants underwent seven encoding sessions and one testing session. The encoding sessions were separated by certain lengths of intervals such that there were seven levels of time gaps between encoding and testing. In each encoding session, participants learned a list of 30 pictures (including 10 neutral, 10 positive and 10 negative pictures). In the testing session, they were presented with a list of 210 old and 210 new pictures and made “old/new” and “remember/know” judgements. The results showed that negative arousing pictures enhanced overall recognition in the 2-week interval and enhanced recollection in both the 2-week and 3-week intervals. However, neither negative nor positive arousing pictures had any effect on familiarity regardless of retention interval. The current study contributes to the literature by suggesting that longer retention intervals do not necessarily lead to more pronounced effects of negative arousing pictures and that the modulation of retention interval depends on the specific components of recognition memory.     

Individual differences and memory for faces,pictures, and words

People who had performed exceptionally well or badly on facial recognition tests between 1 and 4 years previously were given three recognition tasks, one involving faces, one involving paintings, and a third using visually presented words. Those selected as good recognizers were better on the recognition of faces and paintings, but they did not differ in verbal memory. This result suggests that people who are particularly good at facial recognition have a generally good visual memory that is separate from verbal memory.     

Spatial information with pictures and words in visual short-term memory

In a delayed matching task, the influence of spatial congruence between study and test on visual short-term memory for geometric figures and words was investigated. Subjects processed series of pictures which showed three words or three geometric figures arranged as rows or as triangular configurations. At test, the elements were presented in the identical or in the alternative configuration as at study. In the non-matching case, one of the studied elements was exchanged. The delay was 5 s. Subjects judged whether the elements were the same as during study, independent of their configuration. In Exp. 1, pictures of figures and words were mixed within one list. For both modalities, the response times were longer if the configuration at test was incongruent to the one at study. This contradicts the results of Santa, who observed effects of spatial congruency for figures, but not for words. In Exp. 2 we therefore presented the same material as in Exp. 1, but now the lists were modality-pure, as in the experiment of Santa – i.e., words and figures were shown in different lists. This time, spatial incongruency impaired recognition of the figures, but not recognition of the words. These results show that in a non-verbal context, isolated visually presented words are spatially encoded as non-verbal stimuli (figures) are. However, the word stimuli are encoded differently if the task is a pure verbal one. In the latter case, spatial information is discarded. Received: 9 September 1997 / Accepted: 30 March 1998