RETENTION OF VISUAL AND VERBAL CODES OF SAME STIMULI

80 undergraduates were shown drawings of common objects and later given verbal recall tests for the object names, followed by visual recognition tests scaled to reflect the accuracy of the visual retention. A 2 * 2 * 2 design permitted assessment of the effects of degree of training, of retention interval, and of instructions to verbalize during training. The most significant finding was that the probability of recall of object names is essentially uncorrelated with the accuracy of visual recognition of these same objects by the same Ss. As an explanation the possibility of independent storage systems for the visual and verbal information related to the same objects was considered but rejected as improbable. Verbal recall 2 wk. after training seemed to be based largely upon the retrieval of visual storage. The recoding potential of visual storage into a verbal concept appears to be determined by those aspects of the visual storage which distinguish the object class, and not by aspects which distinguish among objects of the same class. Visual storage losses of both aspects occurred during the 2-wk period examined, but no significant correlation existed between the 2 types of losses. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved). © 1968 American Psychological Association.