Linguistic influences on visual memory

Abstract

The Whorf-Sapir hypothesis has raised considerable controversy in the literatures of psychology and anthropology. Several misconceptions of the hypothesis are reviewed, and the hypothesis was experimentally supported in a visual reproduction paradigm. Subjects were first given label training for a set of figures, and were then asked to recall by drawing the shapes. Training with categorized labels resulted in a 25% improvement in recall when compared to a condition with nonword (paralog) labels. Even stronger evidence of linguistic influence on visual memory was obtained by examining the order of recall. The conceptual relationships among labels strongly influenced the sequence of reproductions.

The influence of talking on showing and telling: adult‐child talk and children's verbal and nonverbal event recall

“…Ellis, 1968;Hardin & Banaji, 1993) and philosophical debate (Sutton, 2002). For example Santa and Baker (1975) showed that adults' free recall of nonsense shapes was facilitated when, at encoding, the stimuli were paired with verbal labels rather than nonwords; recall was assessed by asking participants to draw the shapes. Further, the verbal labels affected the sequence of free recall, such that the shapes were organised into clusters determined by the semantic categories of the words.…”

“…Further, the verbal labels affected the sequence of free recall, such that the shapes were organised into clusters determined by the semantic categories of the words. Santa and Baker (1975) suggested that the memorial benefit of verbal labels is due to their focusing attention on distinctive stimulus features and establishing a range of associations that determine what is recalled and how (in what order). In addition to highlighting the 'organization and retrieval effects of language' (p. 449), Santa and Baker's (1975) findings also indicate that adults can use the language from encoding to organise nonverbal recall in the absence of the scaffolding provided by the objects present in re-enactment.…”

A nonverbal test of naturalistic memory for alcohol commercials

“…Indeed, narrative reports have provided much valuable data in the study of naturalistic memory (e.g., G. Cohen, Conway, & Maylor, 1994;Marian & Neisser, 2000). However, tests that elicit and record nonverbal, perceptual content or productions from memory appear very rarely in research on memory for naturally occurring events (e.g., Martin & Jones, 1998;Rubin & Kontis, 1983;Swanson, Reffel, & Trahan, 1991), and in basic experimental studies of memory (e.g., Amrhein & Sanchez, 1997;Santa & Baker, 1975). Yet many events, especially television commercials and other complex everyday occurrences, have numerous nonverbal, visual features that eliciting verbal responses alone may not assess completely.…”