Incidental cues and picture/word differences in recall

Abstract

80 university undergraduates attempted free recall of 20 objects presented as either (a) normally printed words, (b) words enriched with iconic sign characteristics, (c) normal line drawings, or (d) schematic line drawings constructed from a limited set of elements. Enriched words were better recalled than normal words, whereas differences in recall between the two types of line drawings just failed to reach significance. The results were discussed in reference to the dual coding- and incidental-cue hypothesis.