Conceptual memory for picture and prose episodes

Abstract

In two experiments, subjects decided whether probes were true or false of one of some previously studied picture and prose episodes. The results indicated that response times to probes depicting explicit events were faster when they were in the same modality (picture or prose) as their episodes than when they were in the opposite modality, but response times to probes depicting implicit events were as fast when they were in the opposite modality as when they were in the same modality. These results suggest that the conceptual representations of picture and prose episodes are identical in form. The second experiment indicated that probes could be evaluated as fast from long as from short episodes. This result is consistent with the notion that retrieving information from episodes is done, not by scanning all the events of an episode, but by restricting the search only to the relevant slot in the schema into which the episode is assimilated. © 1980 Psychonomic Society, Inc.