Effects of irrelevant color changes on speed of visual recognition following short retention intervals.

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Abstract
Describes 3 experiments in which a total of 80 undergraduates judged whether a pair of test letters had the same names as a memory pair presented either 1 or 8 sec earlier. 2 other (irrelevant) changes were possible: case (upper and lower) and color changes (red and green). Half of the Ss recalled the color of the memory pair following their same- vs different-name decision. As predicted under the visual memory hypothesis, same-name decisions were faster when the cases of memory and test pairs were the same. This reaction time difference (different case minus same case) was greater at 1 than at 8 sec and greater for Ss recalling color; however, it was unaffected by color change. Color change slowed decisions following both 1 and 8 sec for Ss recalling color, but only at 1 sec for Ss not recalling color. Neither case nor color effects were reduced when the distractor task (shadowing) was no longer required. This was interpreted as favoring the "alternative generation" rather than the "verbalization" explanation of why the case effect is often lost over longer retention intervals. (20 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved)

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