| 其他摘要 | Pictorial memory, a supplemental cognitive pathway, is essential for remembering and understanding visual images, facts, and sensory experiences, and is crucial for our comprehension and navigation in a complex world. However, most memory studies predominantly focus on verbal modalities, resulting in a potentially incomplete picture of our cognitive architecture, particularly regarding the dynamic interplay of conceptual and perceptual information within pictorial memory. As its core, pictorial memory excels in representing both conceptual and perceptual information, reinforcing its significant role in memory research. Despite this, the degree to which these distinct types of information contribute to the encoding, retrieval, and susceptibility to interference within pictorial memory needs further exploration. To assess the unique impact of each type of information, previous research often examines false recognition, often tied to distractors during tests that typically align with the same category objects (conceptual information) or exhibit a visually similar appearance to studied pictures (perceptual information). Our current study aimed to provide robust empirical evidence regarding whether conceptual and perceptual information is equivalently encoded and retrieved, and equivalently susceptible to recognition-phase encoding induced by interferences, testing and decay. To do so, we used foils similar to studied targets in conceptual and/or perceptual dimensions, including random foils (CLPL), foils that were conceptually similar but not perceptually similar to the targets (CHPL), foils that were perceptually similar but not conceptually similar to the targets (CLPH), and foils that were similar to the targets in both conceptual and perceptual dimensions (CHPH). We hypothesized that if conceptual and perceptual information has the same mnemonic mechanisms (equal encoding rate, retrieval rate, and forgetting rate), the CHPL and CLPH foils should generate equal false alarm rate, and equal false alarm rate's dynamics during test. We conducted in total four experiments, in which the first three was to see if the CHPL and CLPH foils equally contribute to pictorial memory. In the first and third experiments, we aimed to understand the influence of varying study times on the relative contributions of conceptual and perceptual information to memory encoding and retrieval. Our findings indicated that CHPL and CLPH foils generated equal false alarm rate, suggesting both types of information contributed equally, regardless of the duration of the study period. The second and third experiments sought to explore how changes in the study task affected the encoding and retrieval of conceptual and perceptual information. We found that CHPL and CLPH foils produced equal false alarm rate in all the experiments except conceptual encoding conditions. This demonstrates the encoding and retrieval of these types of information were roughly equivalent unless participants were given instructions emphasizing conceptual understanding during the study phase. Finally, in the fourth experiment, we investigated the differential impact of encoding during the recognition phase on conceptual and perceptual information. We used foils that differed in conceptual and perceptual similarity to targets and manipulated conditions of repeated study vs. repeated recognition, same vs. different foils, and a 10-minute vs. 2-day delay. Our results showed that while both types of information experienced similar effects of output interference, recognition benefit, and testing effect, perceptual information demonstrated a greater susceptibility to recognition interference and decay compared to conceptual information. Collectively, our research findings cohesively illuminate several crucial aspects of the interplay between conceptual and perceptual information in visual memory. It was observed that both types of information are encoded and stored into memory at equal levels, unless the study task is conceptually oriented. Moreover, both conceptual and perceptual information are equally retrieved to probe memory and incite output interference. However, perceptual information shows a higher vulnerability to the negative effects of previous tests' output interference and exhibits a greater susceptibility to decay. This underscores the robustness of conceptual information in pictorial memory. Despite these nuances, the general consensus from our experiments underscores the equal contribution of both conceptual and perceptual information in mnemonic processes, thereby highlighting the multifaceted nature of memory encoding and retrieval. We relate our observations to the existing empirical and theoretical literature on verbal memory and apply the Retrieving Effectively from Memory model to comprehend information processing in visual memory. |
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