Semantic and perceptual processes in symbolic comparisons

Abstract

This article studies the processing of pictures and words as symbols. Pictures lead to faster and more accurate responses than words when the task is to decide which member of a pair of pictures or words denotes the larger or smaller object. The present experiments show that the superiority of pictures results from the fact that pictures are interpreted more quickly than words, but that after the interpretation is made, processing is the same. These experiments also give evidence that pictures and words are both processed in terms of linguistic codes rather than mental images. The results are well accounted for by an information-processing model that is based on two general assumptions: (a) The stimuli and the instructions are represented as discrete codes, and (b) processing proceeds until one and only one of the stimulus codes is the same as the code for the instructions.