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Four experiments (N = 164) on context-dependent memory were performed to explore the effects on verbal memory of incidental cues during the test session which replicated specific features of the learning session. These features involved (1) bystanders, (2) the clothing of the experimenter, (3) background music, and (4) the arousal level of the subject. Social contextual cues (bystanders or experimenter clothing) improved verbal recall or recognition. However, recall decreased when the contextual cue was a different stimulus taken from the same conceptual category (piano music by Chopin) that was heard during learning. Memory was unaffected by congruent internal cues, produced by the same physiological arousal level (low, moderate, or high heart rate) during the learning and test sessions. However, recall increased with the level of arousal across the three congruent conditions. The results emphasize the effectiveness as retrieval cues of stimuli which are socially salient, concrete, and external.

The effect of size changes (8:1 or 1:8) between learning and recognition sessions upon item and size recognition was tested, using either pictures or words as stimuli. Participants (N=34) viewed color photographs of everyday objects or the corresponding printed words and then performed 160 trials of a recognition task, including 50% new stimuli, for which they had to indicate whether each item had been seen before and whether its size had changed. Item recognition, for pictures only, was improved by size congruency between the learning and test sessions. In contrast, size recognition was raised by learning/test-size congruency for both pictures and words. Both word- and picture-learning stimuli produced higher item and size recognition when large in area rather than small. The data are interpreted as showing the stronger role of spatial coding with pictorial than with verbal stimuli.

Based on previous research by Goldstein and Chance in which poor recognition memory for abstract visual patterns was reported, this study compared recognition memory for pictures of everyday concrete objects, regular abstract stimuli as employed by Goldstein and Chance, and diverse abstract stimuli. A (3) x 2 design (stimulus type x test order) analysis of variance design was used. The subjects (N = 31) first viewed 30 target stimuli, followed by an immediate recognition test in which for 30 paired target and distractor stimuli shown they indicated which one they had seen previously. Concrete pictures were recognized with near perfect accuracy, and above the level for diverse abstract pictures; these in turn were better identified than regular abstract items, on which performance resembled that found by Goldstein and Chance. It is concluded that stimulus discriminability, rather than representational meaningfulness, may be crucial in picture recognition.