Word and picture identification: Is representational parsimony possible?

Kirsner, Milech, Stumpfel · Memory & Cognition · 1986 · cognitive-psychology · 10.3758/bf03197015 · record Kirsner1986-word-and-picture-identification-is-represent
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Where this record's text came from. faceted 2026-08 by reading the locally held text (pdftext); every evidence string verified as an exact substring of that text before merging. Replication status set to contested because the paper's central finding directly opposes the published Durso & Johnson (1979) asymmetry claim, while the paper also reports internal replication in Experiment 2 ("The result was replicated, and we demon strated (1) that transfer between line drawings and printed words in picture-word conditions may be insensitive to strategy manipulations during the study phase"). The pdftext extraction contains hyphenation/space artefacts (e.g. 'experi ments', 'dis crepancy'), which are preserved verbatim in the evidence quotes as required. Note the paper also makes a strong method-level contribution (relative priming, RP, as a task- and metric-free transfer measure) that the single claim type facet cannot capture. 2026-08-19 and 2026-08-25 schema-0.3 passes: every quote verified as an exact substring of the staged text and anchored at merge time; concept terms verified present; every edge endpoint an existing node.
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Other fields define these differently the same word, defined another way in another discipline
meta-analysis 4 fields · standard deviation 3 fields · repetition priming 2 fields

Tags on this paper

Every tag the record carries, each linking to every other paper in the corpus that carries it. A tag appears here whether or not its words occur in the article — the spans below are only the ones a sentence in this paper licenses. Of the 4 concept tags on this paper, all 4 are grounded in a quoted sentence. All carry the tagger's gloss of what the term means in this paper, which is not something the article can license.
repetition priming word identification episodic recognition memory trace Repetition priming arises because processing an item changes the system, and the change facilitates later identification in proportion to how many of the same processes are re-invoked at test. Pictures prime words because task demands lead subjects to treat the drawings as linguistic objects, engaging word-structure processes even without alphabetic input. Variability in relative priming is produced by sense (nuance) matching: priming is complete only when the same sense is accessed at study and test. relative priming (RP) primary processing secondary processing remote repetition conditions mode modality repetition status word frequency accuracy of word identification identification threshold ANOVA one-way analysis of variance post hoc multiple comparison test Comparisons conducted according to Newman-Keuls ANOVA interaction test the interaction between word frequency and repetition status repeated measures ANOVA analysis of variance conducted on the accuracy data standard deviation meta-analysis descriptive meta-analysis behavioural-experiment

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relation to other workclaim_relationshow this paper stands to another: agrees, contradicts, extends, qualifies
claim typeclaim_typethe shape of the claim: existence, mechanism, method, critique, prediction, null
concept edgeconcept_edgesan asserted relation between two concepts, with the sentence asserting it
conceptconceptsan idea the paper works with, quoted where the paper uses it
content tagcontent_tagsa finding, definition, quantity, statistic or variable named in the paper
controlcontrolsan experiment run to eliminate a rival explanation
limitationlimitationswhat the paper says its evidence cannot support
mechanismmechanismshow the reported effect is said to come about
methodmethodhow the paper produced its evidence
phenomenonphenomenonthe effect or regularity under study
sensesensesa distinct use of a term, quoted where the paper fixes it

The paper

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claim_relations 2 · claim_type 1 · concept_edges 2 · concepts 4 · content_tags 27 · controls 2 · limitations 4 · mechanisms 3 · method 1 · phenomenon 1 · senses 3

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facettagfieldconf.whose words
claim_typeexistence
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claim_typethe paper's words
phenomenonrepetition priming between pictures and printed words
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phenomenonthe paper's words
methodbehavioural-experiment
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methodthe paper's words
mechanismsmechanisms
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mechanisms[0]the tagger's words
mechanismsmechanisms
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mechanisms[1]the tagger's words
mechanismsmechanisms
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mechanisms[2]the tagger's words
limitationsEqual relative-priming values do not entail that the same underlying processes are involved in each stimulus-class combination.
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limitations[0]the tagger's words
limitationsThe strategy-insensitivity result rests on a single dissociation and inherits its inferential weakness.
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limitations[1]the tagger's words
limitationsThe account cannot explain the observed variability in relative priming across experiments and experimenters.
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limitations[2]the tagger's words
limitationsThe estimated picture-word priming value may hold only when pictures are treated as linguistic objects; treated as pictures, priming may vanish.
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limitations[3]the tagger's words
controlsa PEST staircase (Parameter Estimation by Sequential Testing) held every subject at approximately the same level of difficulty
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eliminates: that a group difference is a difference in task difficulty rather than in priming · outcome (stated by the tagger, no quotation): held
controls[0]0.95the tagger's words
controlsthe item subsets were counterbalanced across subjects so each appeared equally often under each of the three priming treatments
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eliminates: that a treatment effect is an item-subset effect · outcome (stated by the tagger, no quotation): held
controls[1]0.95the tagger's words
conceptsrepetition priming
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concepts[0]0.95the paper's words
conceptsword identification
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concepts[1]0.95the paper's words
conceptsepisodic recognition
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concepts[2]0.95the paper's words
conceptsmemory trace
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also in: memory trace
concepts[3]0.95the paper's words
sensesA REVERSAL BETWEEN TWO TASKS ON THE SAME MATERIAL, WHICH IS WHY DIFFICULTY CANNOT EXPLAIN IT: `Intramodal performance was superior in word identification, Quotation withheld.` Word-word beats picture-word when the task is identification; picture-word beats word-word when the task is recognition. The sign flips, so no account in which one condition is simply weaker can survive - the same structural move as Finkbeiner2011's colour-versus-identity and Schmidt2010's brightness-versus-contrast, and the strongest form of dissociation evidence in this corpus
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senses[0]0.95the tagger's words
sensesAND IT CONTRADICTS THE PROPOSITION IT SET OUT TO TEST. Durso and Johnson (1979) held that although a printed word facilitates identification of a corresponding picture, a picture does NOT facilitate later word recognition. This paper finds that it does: `repetition priming of words by prior pictures is found with the PEST procedure, in which the dependent variable is accuracy of word identification.` An asymmetry claimed in the literature turns out to be an artefact of the measure - the authors say they used identification rather than naming latency `in order to avoid the range limitations in adult reading data`, and the effect appears
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senses[1]0.95the tagger's words
sensesTHE FIFTH EXPERIMENT EXISTS ONLY TO CROSS THE TWO TASKS, AND THAT IS THE DESIGN: `Quotation withheld.` Four experiments establish the effect in one task; the fifth puts both tasks on the same footing so their ordering can be compared. A crossover is only available to a design that runs both tasks - and the earlier literature, which ran them separately, could not have found it however many subjects it used
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senses[2]0.95the tagger's words
claim_relationscontradicts → Durso & Johnson (1979) and Morton (1984) accounts of asymmetric picture-word transfer
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claim_relations[0]the tagger's words
claim_relationsreplicates → Scarborough, Gerard and Cortese (1979, Experiment 3) episodic recognition experiment
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claim_relations[1]the tagger's words
concept_edgesword identification —contrasted-with→ episodic recognition
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strength of the relation: 0.95 · note: THE CONTRAST IS THE INSTRUMENT, NOT THE SUBJECT. These two tasks are crossed so that the ORDERING of intramodal against intermodal priming can be compared between them, and the reversal is what the fifth experiment was built to detect. Weight 0.95: the comparison is explicit and it is the paper's design. The reversal itself is quoted whole in the first sense, because it names 'intramodal' and 'intermodal' - which are not nodes here, since the staged text breaks 'inter modal' in most of its occurrences.
concept_edges[0]0.95the tagger's words
concept_edgesrepetition priming —operationalised-as→ word identification
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strength of the relation: 0.9 · note: THE MEASURE WAS CHOSEN TO AVOID A KNOWN CEILING AND THAT CHOICE PRODUCED THE RESULT. The authors state they used word identification rather than naming latency 'in order to avoid…' - and the effect Durso and Johnson could not find appears. Weight 0.9: the operationalisation is explicit, and the quote names both the procedure (PEST) and the two dependent variables (accuracy, threshold). An operationalisation that changes the answer is worth an edge of its own, because the disagreement in the literature is about the measure and not about the phenomenon.
concept_edges[2]0.95the tagger's words
content_tagsANOVA
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also in: ANOVA
content_tags.statistics[0]the tagger's words
content_tagspost hoc multiple comparison test
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content_tags.statistics[1]the tagger's words
content_tagsANOVA interaction test
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content_tags.statistics[2]the tagger's words
content_tagsrepeated measures ANOVA
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content_tags.statistics[3]the tagger's words
content_tagsstandard deviation
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content_tags.statistics[4]the tagger's words
content_tagsmeta-analysis
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also in: meta-analysis
content_tags.statistics[5]the tagger's words
content_tagsRepetition priming occurred when a test word was preceded by a line drawing of the same concept.
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content_tags.findings[0]the tagger's words
content_tagsIntermodal (picture-word) priming is real but smaller in magnitude than intramodal (word-word) priming.
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content_tags.findings[1]the tagger's words
content_tagsThe size of picture-to-word priming is unaffected by whether subjects encoded the pictures by naming or by referential size judgment, i.e. it is insensitive to study-phase strategy.
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content_tags.findings[2]the tagger's words
content_tagsWord frequency modulates only the intermodal component of priming; the extra facilitation attributable to intramodal repetition is frequency-independent.
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content_tags.findings[3]the tagger's words
content_tagsIn episodic recognition the ordering of conditions reverses, with picture-word better than word-word, the opposite of the perceptual identification result.
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content_tags.findings[4]the tagger's words
content_tagsrelative priming (RP)
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content_tags.definitions[0]the tagger's words
content_tagsprimary processing
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content_tags.definitions[1]the tagger's words
content_tagssecondary processing
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content_tags.definitions[2]the tagger's words
content_tagsremote repetition conditions
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content_tags.definitions[3]the tagger's words
content_tagsmode
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also in: mode
content_tags.definitions[5]the tagger's words
content_tagsmodality
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also in: modality
content_tags.definitions[6]the tagger's words
content_tagsrepetition status
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content_tags.variables[0]the tagger's words
content_tagsword frequency
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content_tags.variables[1]the tagger's words
content_tagsaccuracy of word identification
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content_tags.variables[6]the tagger's words
content_tagsidentification threshold
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content_tags.variables[7]the tagger's words
content_tags0.57 — relative priming value for picture-to-word transfer obtained in Experiment 1
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content_tags.quantities[0]the tagger's words
content_tags.35 (SD = 0.22, N = 9) — mean relative priming for picture-word transfer averaged over the nine previously published studies the authors compiled
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content_tags.quantities[1]the tagger's words
content_tags55.3 % and 61.6 % vs 46.8% — word identification accuracy in the picture-word and word-word conditions compared with the new word baseline in Experiment 1
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content_tags.quantities[2]the tagger's words
content_tags14 msec (range 7 to 33) — mean PEST-derived stimulus onset asynchrony threshold for the 24 retained subjects in Experiment 1
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content_tags.quantities[3]the tagger's words
content_tags15.4 msec (SD = 3.2) and 12.9 msec (SD = 4.3) — 50% identification thresholds for low- and high-frequency words that had previously been seen as line drawings (Experiment 4)
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content_tags.quantities[4]the tagger's words
content_tags48.1 % and 0.30 sec — accuracy and reaction time advantage of the picture-word over the word-word condition in the episodic recognition test
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content_tags.quantities[5]the tagger's words

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