Verbal overshadowing in visual imagery is due to recoding interference

Abstract

Verbal overshadowing reflects the impairment in memory performance following verbalisation of nonverbal stimuli. A recent debate has concerned the mechanisms that govern the verbal overshadowing phenomenon in different domains. In the present paper, we explore the dynamics of verbal overshadowing in the imagery domain, by manipulating the presence of visual and verbal cues at retrieval. In particular, the role of self-generated names as retrieval cues was investigated to contrast the Transfer-Inappropriate Processing (TIP) and the Recoding Interference (RI) accounts of verbal overshadowing. Results from three experiments revealed that verbal overshadowing in visual imagery can be attenuated by any cues (visual or verbal) that trigger the activation of featural representations necessary to complete an image transformation task. Counterintuitively, like visual cues, self-generated common nouns, but not proper nouns or nonwords, significantly improved visual imagery performance, hence supporting a recoding interference account of VO.

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by a USOB grant (2004) to Maria A. Brandimonte. The present results were presented at the Symposium on Verbalizing Visual Memories at the BBCS conference, Montreal, Canada, July 2005. We are grateful to Lucia Maione for data collection and to Peter Walker for his helpful comments and suggestions at the initial stages of the research.