Monitoring Eye Movements to Investigate the Picture Superiority Effect in Spatial Memory

Abstract

Spatial memory is usually better for iconic than for verbal material. Our aim was to assess whether such effect is related to the way iconic and verbal targets are viewed when people have to memorize their locations. Eye movements were recorded while participants memorized the locations of images or words. Images received fewer, but longer, gazes than words. Longer gazes on images might reflect greater attention devoted to images due to their higher sensorial distinctiveness and/or generation with images of an additional phonological code beyond the visual code immediately available. We found that words were scanned mainly from left to right while a more heterogeneous scanning strategy characterized encoding of images. This suggests that iconic configurations tend to be maintained as global integrated representations in which all the item/location pairs are simultaneously present whilst verbal configurations are maintained through more sequential processes.

What eye movements reveal about strategy encoding of words in younger and older adults

“…Refixations of the same word may actually function as supplementary presentations of the material to be learnt, resulting in the strengthening of that word in memory. Interestingly, Cattaneo et al (2008), who looked at the way people memorized the location of images or words in a display, found that in contrast with the above data, the average duration of single gazes on a particular item was more critical than the number of gazes on that item in predicting the accuracy of its localization at test. More generally, the relationship between eye movements and memory may be explained by the way people focus their attention while scanning scenes, pictures or words, and by the amount of information they extract to optimize their representations in memory (Hollingworth & Henderson, 2002;Kafkas & Montaldi, 2011;Ryan, Leung, Turk-Browne, & Hasher, 2007;Van der Linden et al, 2009).…”

“…Surprisingly, most of the eye-tracking studies that explored people's encoding processes used pictorial material such as visual scenes (e.g., Sharot, Davidson, Carson, & Phelps, 2008;Van der Linde, Rajashekar, Bovik, & Cormack, 2009), pictures (e.g., Kafkas & Montaldi, 2011;Molitor, Ko, Hussey, & Ally, 2014) or faces (e.g., Henderson, Williams, & Falk, 2005). Only very few studies were devoted to the memorization of verbal material (Cattaneo, Rosen, Vecchi, & Pelz, 2008;Geiselman & Bellezza, 1977;Geiselman, Woodward, & Beatty, 1982;Pazzaglia et al, 2014;Tversky, 1974).…”

Visual event-related potential studies supporting the validity of VARK learning styles' visual and read/write learners

“…This study was the first evidence demonstrating the picture superiority effect in both V learners and R learners. Previous studies have found picture superiority effects in normal subjects without classifying their learning styles (3,15,31). In this study, ITM tests were performed 1 h after the recognition tasks.…”

“…The picture superiority effect is the concept that pictures are easier to recognize than words (14). Previous studies have demonstrated that subjects could remember pictures better when performing picture and word recognition tasks (3,5,15). However, these studies were designed to recognize stimuli displayed in the short term.…”

A bibliometric review ofInternational Marketing Review (IMR): past, present, and future

“…However, bibliometric studies offer the advantage of presenting an empirically sound synthesis. Finally, the visual information furnished through scientific mapping is easier to absorb, for longer retention and future research applications (Brady et al , 2008; Cattaneo et al , 2008). Given this series of advantages, we now construct an empirically grounded bibliometric analysis of IMR publications between 1983 and 2019.…”