Short-term recognition memory for complex free-form figures

Abstract

Evidence from an STM experiment is presented which suggests that visual information need not be recoded verbally. In a same-different recognition task in which stimuli were free-form nonsense figures, recognition rates were substantially above chance for memory intervals of up to 20 sec. The nature of the items to be remembered renders very unlikely an explanation of the data based on verbal coding of the visual information. © 1971, The Psychonomic Society, Inc.. All rights reserved.