| dc.description.abstract | A striking characteristic of episodic memory is that memory is better for pictures
than words—the picture superiority effect (Paivio, 1971). While evidence in support of
past explanations (e.g., dual-coding and sensory semantic models) has been inconsistent,
a growing body of behavioural (e.g.. Potter & Faulconer, 1975; Smith & Magee, 1980)
and neurological (Grady et al., 1998) evidence points to superior processing of meaning,
which is generally associated with pictorial presentations, as a major source of the
pictorial superiority effect The results of the present study—which manipulated meaning
processing at study (congruent/incongruent meaning questions vs. no questions) and
study/test form (picture or word at study crossed with picture or word at test)—revealed
that when potential ceiling problems of previous studies (e.g., Durso & Johnson, 1980;
Emmerich & Ackerman, 1979) are controlled, meaning elaboration 1) reduces, but does
not eliminate, picture superiority in Yes/No Recognition responses, 2) does not affect the
advantage of pictures over words in Remember (e.g., Tulving, 1985) responses but may
affect Know responses, and 3) does not affect the advantage of pictures over words in
Source Memory (e.g., Durso & Johnson, 1980) responses. Moreover, because the
benefits of reinstating the study form at test were as large for words as for pictures—for
recognition, remember, and source responses—the results imply that the processing of
pictures cannot be treated as including processing in common with words with the
addition of picture specific processing. Rather, the processing of pictures and words
must result in equally unique sources of information that differ in terms of their overall
memorability. | |
