Familiarity and recognition of nonsense shapes.

Abstract

Nonsense shapes were presented with frequencies varying from 0 to 25 to Ss who were later required to rate the same stimuli on a five-point scale of familiarity. For different groups of Ss the delay between the familiarization and rating sessions was 0, 1, 2, 3, or 5 hr. A measure of recognition was obtained as well by dichotomizing the ratings into "Familiar" and "Unfamiliar" categories. A total of seven groups of 100 Ss each was used in two separate experiments. The conclusions were: 1. There were no significant differences in familiarity as a function of delays of as much as 5 hr. between the two sessions. 2. There were no differences in recognition as a function of the various amounts of delay. 3. Familiarity of nonsense shapes was found to be a monotonic, negatively accelerated function of the frequency of experience. The equation was f = 2.28 log (n + 1) - .12, which had an index of correlation of .997.