Memory for Pictures: A Life-Span Study
of the Role of Visual Detail
Kathy Pezdek
The Chremont Graduate School
PEZDEK, KATHY. Memory for Pictures: A Life-Span Study of the Role of Visual Detail. CHILD
DEVELOPMENT, 1987, 58, 807-815. This experiment assessed the effect of the amount of physical
detail in pictures on picture recognition memory for 7-year-olds, 9-year-olds, young adults, and older
adults over 68. Subjects were presented simple and complex line dxawings, tactorially combined in
a "same-different" recognition test with simple or complex forms of each. For each age group,
recognition accuracy was significantly higher for pictures presented in the simple dian in the
complex form. This eflfect was due to diflferences between simple and complex pictures in the
correct rejection rate but not die hit rate; subjects were less accurate detecting deletions fix>m
changed complex pictures than addithns to changed simple picitures. The older adults were no
better than chance at correctly rejecting changed complex pictures. Altfiou^ increasing the presentation duration from 5 sec to 15 sec increased overall accuracy, it did not increase subjects' ability to
correctly reject changed complex pictures. Results are interpreted in terms of schematic encoding
and storage of pictures. Accordingly, visual information that communicates the central schema of
each picture is more likely to be encoded and retained in memory than information diat does not
communicate this schema.
Individuals have an impressive ability to
remember pictures they have seen before.
This has been demonstrated with recognition
tests (Nickerson, 1965; Shepard, 1967; Standing, Conezio, & Haber, 1970) as well as with
recall tests (Bousfield, Esterson, & Whitmarsh, 1957). In addition, a number of developmental studies have reported increases
with age, from childhood to early adulthood,
in recognition memory for large nxmibers of
pictures (Hofi&nan & Dick, 1976), recall and
recognition for visual objects (Dirks &c Neisser, 1977; Mandler, Seegmiller, 6E Day, 1977),
and face-reex)gnition memory (Blaney fie
Winograd, 1978). However, few of these studies have examined qualitative developmental differences in picture memory. In other
words, are adults and older chilciren processing pictures differently than younger children, or are they just performing the same
processes better?
In typical picture recognition memory
studies, subjects are presented a series of pictures to remember and are then presented a
test that includes some of die "old" pictures
and some "new," distractor pictures. In the
large majority of these studies, the "new,"
distractor pictures are completely new pic-
tures. This procedure thus tests how well subjects can distinguish pictures they have seen
from picjtures they have not seen, and they
can do this quite well. What we do not leam
from these studies, however, is how much of
the visual detail in a pic^ture has been retained in memory when a picture is recognized. The present study examines this particular aspect of picture memory and tests for
qualitative differences in these processes
with age.
We initially addressed this issue in an
earlier study from our laboratory (Pezdek &
Chen, 1982). In this previous study, 7-yearolds, 9-year-olds, and young adults were presented simple and complex line elrawings of
scenes. The simple and cK)mpIex forms of
each picture contained the same c^entral information, but peripheral details, shading, and
embellishment were added in the complex
form of each pic^re. These pictures were selected from the set of pictures utilized by Nelson, Metzler, and Reed (1974) and originally
constructed by Nickerson (1965). At test, pictures were presented one at a time in a
"same-different" recognition test Half of the
simple and complex line elrawings were
tested in the same form as presentation; half
This research was conducted while die author was supported by a grant from the National
Institute of Education. I especially thank Sidney Fox for collecting the data for diis study and Tom
Dougherty fbr analyzing the data, and I appreciate conceptual contributions and feedback on die
manuscript provided by Ruth Maki. Requests for reprints should be sent to Kathy Pezdek, Department of Psychology, The Claremont Craduate School, Claremont, CA 91711.
[Child Development, 1987,58, 807-815. © 1987 by tfie Society for Research in Child Etevelopment, Inc.
All rights reserved. 0009.3920/87/5803-000S$01.00]
808
d f l d Development
were changed picUires. The changed test pic- 1969; Tverricy & Shrarman, 1975) as w ^ as for
tures were arrived at by chan^s^ tiie pictures &ces (Lffi^«y, Alexander, & Lane, 1971)
that had been presented in a simple form to increases w£th preseHiitation time and tfut ike
tiie complex form of tibe same picture and beneSts of incireased presenl^fm tlo^ are
changing pictures that had been presented in greater for yovrag c ^ & e n Aao for older c ^ a complex form to tiie simple form of tiie same dren and acblts ( H B ^ Mcairison, & Sheingold, 1970; Naus, Omstein, & Mvano, 1977;
picture.
Pezdefc & Mlceli, 19^). Seven-year-olds and
The piincipal result of Pe2Kiek and Chen 9->^a'"0lds were included in the pre^nt
(1982) was tbat for adults, recx^Eiitlon sen- study for cOTi^Mn^^ay wifli the P e z d ^ and
sitivity, meastcred in terms of d', was grei^r Chen (19^) stucb' and, al«), bec»ise previd&
^
l
for pictures in tiie simple than in tiuf C(^
preseirtation condition. However, for 7-i
olds and 9-yeaiHklds, recxignltion sensUJ , . f^E»Uy scun pk^uw
measured in temis of d', was similiB- for pic- cale atl^tlcm to central versus
tures in the ^ns^effiEidccm^^fix p^es^rarttttion cJbbOls (see Goo^ban, 1S80;
condition. 'Hus finding is in maslced cffliferast & Bruner, 1970; V « « | ^ t , 19
to Reese's (1970) hypothesis tiiat reteatitm of & present study ioduded a
visual stimi^ should be posi^vdy rektedl to
l k , haa^ on recent &
the amount (^ dBtf^ in &e ^mali. It is ako
also b e o ^ more Aan
inconsistent witii studies that have repeated ger adiiAs &(»Q iacrettsed Tgs^Beao^0^im
superior recall for compl«£ over simple pic- on meoHiry t a ^ (Cza& & BiS^nowUz, 1985;
tures (Bevan & Steger, 1971; Evertson & Wingfield, Pooa, Unnbrnxli, & Lowe, 1965).
Wicker, 1974) or no difierence between
aduhs* recognition ctf uix^le and comidex^clife span were u ^ s e d in Ms s t e ^ to test if
tures (Nelson et al., 1974).
dS
hiomn to ^dst in
on the above s p ^ S ^ cliSf^Qces between
the test items used by P e a ^ and Oran and
those used in odi» studies. That is, Pe^ek
and Chen utilized test |^c;tures v/iHk &e same
centxal iafom^rtion as i^ctiues presented, but
with added or deleted elabor^ve viswil det ^ s . This study thus speeifically tested memory for the visual di^ails in pfctaires thai retained the same thematic ctmtwat in their
simple and comi^^ forms. Aj^paready, ^ten,
faults' ability to cSiscrimuof^ same &om
changed simple pictures is gr^^a: 6utQ their
ability to discriminate swne feom
r— r—--—.
*•
1.
J
to discrinikiate same nom c^bai^ed plcte^es
was similar for simile wid conqcHex jrfctures.
The puipose of tiie present study was to
farther p r c ^ the quiaiiidive deferences between Euhilts and c^dren in recc^p^tion
memory for visual deteils in pU±iu%s. This
study tested tiie hypt^esis ti^ tbe e^ differences reported by PezcJ^ and CSien (1982)
could be accounted for by cHififei'raices in tiie
time required to encode and (nocess infomiation at dififerent ages. That is, at a given presei^^lon dimrtion, it is hypoi^esisMMi tiiat
c^iikben ce^^xae less of the aviidJtiMe vbual
detEols in memory tiian do yoiuig adi^ts* and
tiius tiieir memory perfiMmimce is simile
with simple and complex pictures.
It has been demonstrated that memory
fbr pictures (Potter, 1976; Potter & Levy,
pictures.
In tiie present study. 7-year-old8,9-yearadMte (coAei^ stadente), toid
jprocedkire c^ized hy Pezeiek md Chen
~), w ^ iHesectation time per ^ d u r e
.
.jen sd:^oete. Tbe |H»lHg#*UHi
ut^xdhy
P e z M and C&en ( I M ) was
8 sec per pctuie. In the iseBcait ^&^, each
picture was pvescmUtd for 5 (»• 15 sec. If the
3es in i8co®^tion taemnixy for
jf^^alev^ctiu:^ lepotted^ Pezand C3ien Jl^Z) are in paA chie to age
v«««erences intbe speedof ei«x»lte®U!fiMana^^^^ ^ ^ ^ mwii^l^faaiE pn^ntttttbn ^Eoe in
^^ present ^udy ^ouM resiA in s u u i ^ pattems erf r e s i ^ among age ffotps ^
^
slower pres^rtOtJon time but not at tiie faster
S v i ^ e c t s . — V c a t y sufcg
p ^ ^
each <kfourage gtoi^ps. Seven-yeotKiids (M
= 6.8 years, SD = .23) and 9-year-olds (M =
8.9 years, SD = .35) partirafeaibed 6om public elimm^m schools in Otu^srant, Ci^for•ia, a mklc&Hdb^ subuib in L(» Angela
Gounty. tlie yoimg a&Ut suli^iects were
uMie^gmdiii^s vfho vokmteesedfrcnnclasses
at tile CUrenHmt CdBeges (M = 21.5 yeais,
SD - 5.44). Tlie dder a d t ^ were volunteers
from a retirement community in Claremont.
Kathy Pezdek
809
They ranged in age from 68 to 90 (M = 80.2
years, SD = 4.52), were generally well
educated (M = 17.4 years of education, SD =
3.4), and were amply healthy to live selfsufiiciently. In each age group approximately
equal numbers of males and females participated in each condition, but gender was not
si)ecifically controlled for.
sentation pictures. The 11 changed versions
of simple presentation pictures were tiie
complex versions of these pic:tures. The 11
changed versions of the complex presentation pic^res were the simple versions of
these pictures. Thus, each of tiie 44 presentation pic*ires was included onc« in the test
phase, in eitiiar the same or changed form.
Design.—All subjects viewed simple and
complex line drawings in the presentation
phase and were tested with same and
changed forms of these pictures. Twenty subjects in each age group were presented the
pictures at a duration of 5 sec each, and 20
were presented the pictures at a duration of
15 sec each. The study can thus be described
a s a 4 x 2 x 2 x 2 mixed &ctorial design
with age and presentation duration as between-subjects factors and presentation form
and test form as within-subjects Victors.
In the tBSt phase, subjects viewed pictures one at a time at a rate controlled by tiie
experimenter. For each pic;ture the experimenter asked, "Is this picture the same as a
picture you saw before, or are there some
changes in this picture?" Several practice
slides were shown first to ensure that subjects
understood what types of changes c:onstituted
changed test items. The assignment of each
picture to conditions of presentation and test
and the sequencing of presentation and test
slides were arranged in two orders. Half of
the subjects in each condition were randomly
assigned to each order. A 3-min intervening
delay task (circling all of the twos on a random number sheet) was included between
presentation and test to ensure that the test
that followed measured long-term memoiy.
Materials.—The materials were the same
as those used by Pezdek and Chen (1982) and
were selected from the set of pictures used by
Nelson et al. (1974) and, originally, by Nickerson (1965). These included 44 basic pictures,
each drawn in both a simple, unembellished
line drawing form, and a cx)mplex, embellished line chawing form, for a t o ^ of 88 pictures. All drawings were black and white.
The complex form of each picture was an exac^ reproduction of the simple form, with the
adciition of elaborative details to both the
principal figure and the background. The central information was thus the same in the simple and complex form of each picture. Examples of stimulus pictures are shown in Figure
1. The use of the same materials as in previous studies strengtiiens this study by allowing
a comparison of results ac^ross studies without possible confounding effects of different
materials.
Procedure.—Subjects participated individually. They were presented a sequence of
slides including 44 presentation pictures, followed by a 3-min delay task, and then 44 test
pictures. The presentation pictures included
22 simple line drawings and 22 complex line
drawings. In the presentation phase, subjects
were instruc!ted to study each picture carefully, as it would be important in a later part
of die experiment The pic;tures were presented on slides by a Kodak Carousel slide
projector. During the presentation phase,
slides were presented for 5 sec each or for 15
sec each. The inter-slide interval was 1 sec.
The test sequence consisted of 22 pictures from the presentation phase—11 simple
and 11 complex pic^tures. The remaining 22
test pictures were c^hanged versions of pre-
Results
The data were scared and analyzed in
terms of the mean percent correct as well as
the signal detection measure of d'. However,
the m^jor results of this study concem di£Ferences between the percent correct data for
same test items (i.e., tiie hit rate) and changed
test items (i.e., the csoirect rejection rate).
These two conditions cannot be examined
separately with the d' measure. Throu^out
the study, results are considered significant at
tile .05 level.
OveraU results.—A 4 (age) x 2 (presentetion duration) x 2 (simple or complex presentation form) X 2 (same or changed test
form) mixed factorial analysis of variance was
performed on the percent correct data. All
main effects were significant First, there
were signific^ant difierencies among the four
£^e groups; young adults perfonned best
(83.2%), followed by ^year-olds (75.4%), 7year-olds (67.6%). and older adults (67.0%),
F(3,152) = 29.94, MS^ = 309.10. Tukey pairwise compariscms indic^ated that only the differences between young adulte and 7-yearolds and between young adults and older
adtilts were significant Recognition acxnuacy
was higher at the l5-sec rate (76.4%) than at
the 5-sec rate (70.2%). F(l,152) = 20.04, MSe
= 309.10. Sulgects were more accurate recognizing pic^res in the simple (79.5%) than
cx)mplex (67.2%) presentation form, F(l,152)
= 100.71, MSe = 240.39, and they were more
810
Child Development
SIMPLE
COMPLEX
FIC. 1.—Examples of pictures in both simple and complex form
accurate recognizing pictures tested in the
same form (hit rate = 77.9%) than in the
changed forni (correct rejection rate =
68.7%), F(l,152) = 32.62, MS^ = 240.39.
Interpretations of these main effects are
qualified by three significant interactions.
First, as can be seen in the bottom row of
Table 1, the interaction of presentation form
X test form was significant, F(l,152) = 32.31,
MSe = 161.49. Post hex: comparisons revealed
that the hit rate did not differ between pictures presented in the simple form (81.3%)
and complex form (74.7%). However, the correct rejection rate was significantly less for
pictures presented in the complex form
(59.7%) than for pictures presented in the
simple form (77.7%), i(152) = 1.81. In other
words, subjects were significantly less accurate at detecting deletions from changed complex pictures than they were at detecting additions to changed simple pictures. This
pattem of results was also the basis for the;
significant main effect of presentation form on
d'data,F(l,152) = 70.29, MS^ = 1.02, with d'
greater for simple (d' = 2.12) than for complex pictures (d' = 1.17).
The interaction of presentation form x
test form on percent correct also entered into
significant second-order interactions of age x
presentation form x test form, F(3,152) =
10.22, MSe = 161.49, and presentation duration X presentation form X test fonn.
Kathy Pezdek
811
TABLE 1
MEAN PERCENTAGE CORRECT IN EACH EXPERIMENTAL CONDITION
PRESENTATION CONDITION
Complex
Simple
TEST CONDITION
7-year-olds:
5 sec
15 sec
Mean
9-year-olds:
5 sec
15 sec
Mean
Young adults:
5 sec
15 sec
Mean
Older adults:
5 sec
15 sec
Mean
Overall mean
Same
Changed
Same
Changed
71.4
82.7
77.0
61.4
74.5
67.9
60.5
69.1
64.8
64.5
56.8
60.7
80.4
90.9
85.7
76.8
80.9
78.9
72.7
80.9
76.8
62.3
58.2
60.2
83.6
87.7
85.7
87.3
91.8
89.5
80.0
88.6
84.3
71.8
74.5
73.2
73.6
79.5
76.6
81.3
68.6
80.0
74.3
77.7
68.2
77.3
72.7
74.7
40.0
49.1
44.5
59.7
F(l,152) = 4.99, MSe = 161.49. However, tiie
overall age x presentation duration x presentation form X test form interacrtion did not
approach significance (F< 1.00).
The signific^ant interaction of age x presentation form X test form is of particnilar interest because this interaction allows an assessment of qualitative differences in picture
recognition memory with age. These results
are presented in Table 1. In order to assess
the nature of this interaction, separate 2 (presentation form) X 2 (test form) analyses of
variance were performed on the data for each
age group. The presentation form X test form
interaction was significant for each age group
except 7-year-olds. Further, for each age
group except 7-year-oIds the difference between the hit rates for simple and complex
pictures was not significiant; however, the correct rejection rate was significantly less for
changed c^omplex pictures than for changed
simple pic^res. On the other hand, for
7-year-olds, although pic^tures presented in
their simple form were recognized significantly more accurately than pictures presented in their complex form, F(l,38) =
12.08, the test form x presentation form interaction was not significant.
In order to assess the nature of the significant interaction of presentation duration x
presentation form x test form, separate 2
(presentation form) x 2 (test form) analyses of
variance were periformed on the data at each
presentation duration. The presentation form
X test form interaction was significant at htiAi
presentation rates. Further, the percent correct difference between the 5-sec and 15-sec
conditions was significant in all cx)nditions except for changed complex pictures. The correct rejection rats fbr complex pic:tures was
exactly the same (59.7%) at both presentation
durations. Thus, increasing the presentation
duration by threefold did not increase subjects' ability to detect the deleted details in
pictures that had been presented in the complex form.
Comparisons of young and older adults
only.—Several previous studies have reported tiiat differences in memory performance between young and older adults can in
part be acxiounted for by age differences in
pDDcessing time (Craik 6c Rabinowitz, 1985;
Wingfield et al., 1985). The older adults were
included in the present study to examine
qualitative ciifferences in memory for details
in pictures between tiiese two age groups
and, specific^ally, to probe whetiier age differences in processing time underlie these memory differences. Furtiier. the significant age X
presentation form x test fonn interaction reported above statistically justifies examining
these two age groups separately.
A 2 (age) x 2 (presentation duration) x 2
(presentation form) x 2 (test form) mixed factorial analysis of variance was performed on
the percent correct data. All main effects
812
were significant in tiie same direction as in
the overall axisAysis reported above. Of particular interest is tiie finding thiA recogmtion accuracy was higher for yoimg adults (83J2%)
tiian for older aduhs (67.0%), F(l,76) = 74.89,
MSe = 278.17. There were also signlficfuit interactions of age X presentE^on form, F(l,76)
= 5.27, MSe = 240.13, age x test form,
F(l,76) = 7.71, MSe = 348.J®, and presentation fctrm X test form, F(l,76) = 55.59, MS^
= 150.51. Interpretations of each of these
firstKJrder interactions are qualified by the
significant secx}nd-orc^r interaction of £^e x
presentation form x test form, F(l,76) = 3.95,
MSe = 103.40. As can be seen in the bottom
half of Table 1, the hit rates for botii £^e
groups did not significantly differ between
simple and complex presentation pictures.
However, for botii age groups, the correct rejection rate was hi^ier for pictures pres^ted
in the simple form than in the complex fc»tn,
but the size of this dil&ren<% was almost
twice as laige for older adidts as for younger
adults. The older adults were, in foct, no
better than chance at detecting deletions in
changed complex pictures at both the 5-sec
and 15-sec presentfUion duratum. No iii*eracticms invcjving pxesenta/don rate ai^rcnac^ied
significance.
Toother, tiiese results su^^est tiuit there
are iKjtfi quantitB^ve and q u i ^ t ^ v e deferences between young and c^der »lults in
menwiy iox detfdls in pictures. However, tiie
absence t^ a significant iotenKition wi£b presentfrfion duration incUcates tiiat tiiese xHlferences are not singly a result of procjessing
rate differences between these two age
groups.
Disciuwion
This study examined develqcHnental differences in memory for details in pictores.
Across £dl four ^ e groups, psrtures presented
in their simj^e form were reco^ized mwe
accun^ly than pictim«s j^reseated in tiieir
complex form, liiis fincite^ c^lfers &cun results repented elsewhere wi^ recsall measures
(Bevm & Steger, 1971; Everlson & Wtdcer,
1974) as well as witii a recogniticm measure
using completely new picbiinss as d^iactor
items (Nelson et al., 1974). t h e results of tiie
present study suggest tiiat sul^ects axe more
accurate at Astinpii^U]^ srane hom duinged
simple pic;hires ti^ tiiey are at c^c»im&nf^ing same hom didnged com^^ex pictures.
Why is this the case?
One interpretation of these results is
based on previous findii^ t h ^ pictures, like
prose materials, are processed schematically
(see Friedman, 1979; Goodman, 1980; Nickerson & Adams, 197^). For example, consider
the chawing represented at the bottom left of
Figure 1. l l i e schema applied to tike |»cture
wcmld be the prepositional representation of a
sentence such as, "The clown is crying." Acc^txlin^y, infinmation that communict^s the
central Schema of each picbire is mcare lticely
to be ehcoded and retained in memory than
information tiiat does not communicate this
schema. It is important to note that tiie implication here is not that schemata are preserved
in memcffy in a verbal form but, rotiier, that
the pictorial ui&nrmatkat that is enc»>dbd schematkraily is stoaikz' to tiie type of in&sm^ion
that can be represented in a sentence tiiat summarizes the picture.
Relevant to the present study, it is suggested that the schema that is cilerived from
the simple wid the cc»nplex form of eaeh picture is e s ^ ^ ^ y the same aad corresponds
to the mfonn£^on in the simple fcaxn of efuh
picHwre. Thus, if subjects' memory repre^ntation fc»- both simpilb and cora^ilex pictures is
similar to the simple version of each picture,
they would be less accurate disciimiimtiQg
same from chwaged comt^ex pictures tiuin
discaimii^ing same firom clmiged simple
pictures.
Tlie next question, however, is how this
suie dtuatitHi in tiie present study. Ute results c^ the prese^ study, ^^etiser with those
of otiiers (see Potter, 1976; P<»ter & Levy,
1969; Tvetsky & Sherman, 1975), s u p ^ r t Ae
c»iu}lusion ^ak memory for pictures inciieases
as the exp<»ure dtmttton per ftfcture increases. The mterpretation of this effect offered in tire i^evious stucUes has been that
increased stiic^ tune leads to better niemory
singly because more in^cKmatkm about the
detidSs of tiie pic^ores is encodbd smd retuoed
at the loiiger inteiWls. However, only cme of
tile studies repo^q|! increased picture rec?ognition m«mo^ with sti*dy time (T^^tsky &
Sherman, WfSi) required subjects to cUstinguish staaefrconchss^ged test ^ctures, and in
tiua stady the rect^i^iiion dala wexe not analyzed separately for hits mid correct rejections. Ala>, in the presoat study, i d # ^ u ^ increasii^ tiie eiqposius duration from 5 sec to
15 sec increasoi overall picture recogititiion
accniracy, xeco^aitioD accuracy for changed
complex pictures was low and ex»ctiy the
sanw (59,7%) at b ( ^ pres^itii^n Orations,
llius, althot^^ increi^ing study tm^ does
lead to b^ter o\%rall pidhire recc^iUtion
ni«mc»y, tiieje is no suppaxt for the hypothesis t h ^ tiiis is simply because more de~
Kathy Pezdek
tails are encoded and retained at longer intervals.
In line with the schematic prcwessing notion outlined above, one interpretation of the
finding that pictures are better recognized at
longer study intervals is that this is due to
qualitative differences rather than quantitative differences in encx)ding and storage of
detail information. If we view picture memory as a schema-driven process, then with
longer on-time subjects would be able to bet'
ter abstract the central schema of each picture
and enrich the memory representation of the
schema by incorporating into it more of the
schema relevant infonnation in the picture.
This would result in better schemata in memory, not merely the storage of more details
from the picture.
There are a few other studies in which
recognition memory for additions to pictures
and deletions from pictures have been compared. However, each of those studies differs
in subtle but significant ways from the present study. In some studies, for example, subjects were instructed to respond "old" to original pictures and to changed original pictures,
and "new" only to completely new, distractor
pictures. Results of these studies are not relevant to the present interest in subject' ability
to distinguish original from changed pictures.
The study by Park, Puglisi, and Sovacool
(1984) is one snch study.
In a more relevant study, Mandler and
Ritchey (1977) presented college subjects
with eight line drawings, each containing six
objects. The recognition test that followed included 64 "old" pictures composed of the
eight target pictures plus seven transformations of each, and 64 completely "new" distractor pictures. The two transformations
relevant to the present discussion were (a)
additions and (b) deletions, in which a new
object was added to or deleted from a target
picture. They reported no significsmt loss over
4 months in the recognition of additions or
deletions (in the organized picture condition),
and recognition accuracy did not differ between these two types of pictures.
These Tesults differ from results reported
in the present study. However, there are two
important differences between these two
studies. First, in the Mandler and Ritchey
(1977) study, subjects were "correct" if they
classified either the target pic^res or the
transformed pictures as "old." Thus, their results do not allow us to assess how well subjects distinguished target pictures from transformed versions of these pic^res. Second,
813
additions and deletions in the Mandler and
Ritchey (1977) study involved adding or deleting a whole object in an array of objects.
Additions and deletions in the present study
involved adding or deleting more general
elaborative details in the simple and complex
version of each picture. Differences between
the results of these two studies c^an be accounted for by these methodological differences.
In another relevant study. Brown and
Campione (1972) had preschool children
study pictures from children's bcwiks. Two
hours, 1 day, or 7 days later they were presented completely new distrac:tor pictures,
identical original picrtures, and changed
original pictures. The changed version of
each original included the same character
(same clothes, same colors, etc.) as in the original picture but in a different pose. Subjects
responded "old" or "new" and tiien classified "old" items as either "identical" or
"changed."
Subjects weTe similarly accurate classifying original and changed pictures as "old" at
each of the three retention intervals. However, subjects were more accurate classifying changed pictures as "changed" than they
were classifying identical pictures as "identical." Although these findings differ from
those reported in the present study, they do
suggest that subjects are generally able to
"notice what is new" in changed old pictures.
The differences in results between the prt;sent study and that by Rrown and Campione
(1972) can be attributed to differences in the
type of changes included in "changed" test
pictures as well as to differences in the age of
the subjects.
Thus, several other studies have investigated memory for additions to and deletions
from pictures. None of these studies concurs
with the principal result of the present study,
that extra detail added to changed simple pictures is detected more accurately than detail
deleted from changed complex pictures. However, there are notable methodological differences between the present study and each of
these other studies.
There are two major developmental differences in the pattem of results in the present study. First, for 7-year-olds the (difference
in the correct rejection rate for pictures presented in the simple (67.9%) and complex
form (60.7%) was not statistically significant,
although this difference was significant for
each of the other three age groups. This
finding is consistent with the results of Pez-
814
Child Development
dek and Chen (1982) that differences among
the four means defined by conditions of presentation form and tost form were less for the
younger children than for the young adults.
This result is also in line with the above interpretation of the overall memory advantage for
simple over complex pic;tures. That is, if simple pictures are better retained than complex
pictures because of schematic processing of
the pictures, and if young children are less
likely than older children and adults to encode pictures schematically, then it would be
expected that the correct rejection rate difference between simple and complex pictures
would be less for younger children as well.
The second developmental difference in
the obtained pattern of results involves a comparison of the young and older adults. Although both young and older adults were
significantly more accurate rejecting changed
simple pictures than changed complex pictures, older adults were far less able than
young adults to correctly reject changed
complex pictures. In feet, older adults were
no better than chance at correctly rejecting
changed complex pictures.
According to the interpretation previcmsly outlined, these results suggest that
when older adults encode complex pictures,
they retain far less of the elaborative details
than do young adults. Thus, at the time of test,
their memory of complex pictures is similar to
the simple form of each picture, and they respond, "Same." Further, the fact that differences between the young adults and the older
adults did not result in significant interactions
with presentation duration suggests that the
processing differences between young and
older adults are not simply a result of processing rate differences.
This study leads to the conclusion that
although adults and children are extremely
accurate at discriminating old pictures from
completely new pictures (Hof&nan & Dick,
1976; Nickerson, 1965; Shepard, 1967; Standing et al., 1970), they are far less accurate discriminating same from changed versions of
old pictures, especially when the changes involve detecting what extra detail has been deleted from changed complex pictures. These
results are important because they suggest
that when we "remember" a picture or a real
world scene, we do not necessarily retain all,
or even most, of the elaborative detail presented. This is consistent with the notion that
pictures, like prose materials, are processed
schematically. As such, scheme-relevant
information in pic:tures is likely to be retained
well in memory, whereas less scheme-
relevant visual elaboration, as manipulated in
the present study, is not retained well. These
results also hi^light the fact that various
measures of recognition memory tap very different aspects of what is retained in pictures.
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