A further evaluation of the limitation of wholistic visualization

In a previous study on the limitation of wholistic visualization, Beech (1976) found that when using a between subjects design, the limitation was an inverted-U function as presentation rate was varied. In the present study a within subject design was employed and it was found that as before, the limitation in visualization increased across the 0.5 to 3.0 sec/object presentation rates, but in contrast to Beech (1976), the limitation remained at an asymptote of 6.6 objects at the slower rates. This result excludes the hypothesis of image decay which was proposed previously. In the second experiment, the speed of visualizing each successively described object was monitored up to the point of the limitation. This showed that subjects took progressively longer to visualize as the array size increased. Furthermore, faster latencies for the first objects were related to subjects visualizing more objects both at the level of individual subjects and in terms of mean performance. Finally it was found that subjects who visualized more objects also remembered more objects on a recall test suggesting that visualization may aid recall.