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Published online: 4 September 2018
© Psychonomic Society, Inc. 2018
Abstract
A well-established phenomenon in the memory literature is the picture superiority effect-the finding that, all else being equal, memory is better for pictures than for words (Paivio & Csapo, 1973). Theorists have attributed pictures' mnemonic advantage to dual coding (Paivio, 1971), conceptual distinctiveness (Hamilton & Geraci, 2006), and physical distinctiveness (Mintzer & Snodgrass, 1999). Here, we present a novel test of the physical-distinctiveness account of picture superiority: If the greater physical variability of pictures relative to words is responsible for their mnemonic benefit, then increasing the distinctiveness of words and/or reducing the physical variability of pictures should reduce or eliminate the picture superiority effect. In the present experiments we increased word distinctiveness by varying font style, font size, color, and capitalization. Additionally, in Experiment 3 we reduced the distinctiveness of pictures by presenting black-and-white pictures with similar orientations. In Experiment 4, a forced choice procedure was used in which subjects were asked to identify the form that each probe had taken during the study phase. The results were consistent with the distinctiveness prediction and, notably, were inconsistent with dual coding.
Keywords Picture superiority effect. Pictures and words .Distinctiveness .Dual coding . Recognition memory
Memory for pictures is generally better than memory for words, a finding known as the picture superiority effect. For example, Shepard (1967) tested memory for 612 color pictures and 540 words. At test, he showed two pictures (or words) simultaneously, one of which had been in the study phase and one of which was new. Whereas subjects correctly identified the old words 88.4% of the time, they correctly identified the old pictures 96.7% of the time. Snodgrass, Volvovitz, and Walfish (1972) reported one of the first studies to use a signal detection analysis on recognition memory for words and line drawings. They replicated Shepard's result, reporting a d' for words of 1.34, as compared to 2.49 for pictures. The picture superiority effect is found with many tests, including free recall (Bevan & Steger, 1971; Bousfield, Esterson, & Whitmarsh, 1957; Paivio & Csapo, 1969, 1973), cued recall (Weldon & Coyote, 1996; Weldon, Roediger, & Challis, 1989), serial recall and reconstruction (D. L. Nelson, Reed, & McEvoy, 1977), and paired-associate learning (D....