Walker, Peter and Marshall, E. L. (1982) Visual memory and stimulus repetition effects. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 111 (3). pp. 348-368. ISSN 0096-3445
Full text not available from this repository.Abstract
Proposed that the effects obtained with familiar visual information are not necessarily a result of active visualization and may only involve long-term visual memory. For example, P. M. Rabbitt and S. M. Vyas (see record 1980-31778-001) observed a visual recency effect in a serial choice RT task involving familiar information. That this recency effect was confined to the final item agrees with the results obtained with unfamiliar visual information. However, this choice RT task did not require Ss to remember previous stimuli, so it is unlikely that they actively visualized them. With the case for a distinct short-term visual memory currently resting on the recency effect interpreted as reflecting a process of active visualization, this result is considered especially important. 13 experiments with 201 18–35 yr old Ss investigated the visual recency effect in the serial choice RT task. It is concluded that this effect is not due to visualization or to a visual trace either decaying or being overwritten by a succeeding stimulus.