Some of the thousand words a picture is worth.

Abstract

Studied the effects of real-world schemata on recognition of complex pictures, using 60 undergraduates. Two kinds of pictures were used: pictures of objects forming real-world scenes and unorganized collections of the same objects. The recognition test employed distractors that varied 4 types of information: inventory, spatial location, descriptive, and spatial composition. Results emphasize the selective nature of schemata since superior recognition of one kind of information was offset by loss of another. Spatial location information was better recognized in real-world scenes, and spatial composition information was better recognized in unorganized scenes. Organized and unorganized pictures did not differ with respect to recognition of inventory and descriptive information. The longer the pictures were studied, the longer Ss took to recognize them. Reaction times for hits, misses, and false alarms increased dramatically as presentation time increased from 5 to 60 sec. It is suggested that detection of a difference in a distractor terminated search, but that when no difference was detected, an exhaustive search of the available information took place. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved)