Host: The Japanese Society for Cognitive Psychology
We investigated the picture superiority effect on recognition. The purpose of this experiment is to examine if the effect is on correct rejection and thus reduce false memory, and to test the conceptual distinctiveness hypothesis. We composed a list of 30 items from three categories: vegetable, animal, and insect. Items were presented one by one either as picture (the picture group) or as words (the words group). Our participants were instructed either to name the item or to name the item’s category. As the results, we found that both the effects of picture superiority and of naming were both on correct rejection. The performances of correct rejection was higher in the name condition. The conceptual distinctiveness hypothesis was supported to explain the naming effect, but it is not certain if it can explain the picture superiority effect.
