Visual and haptic identification of simple and complex objects

Abstract

Encoding specificity is a well-established phenomenon that applies to object recognition. However, recent research has found a violation of encoding specificity for individuals who learn to recognize objects by touch. The current study aimed to examine the types of representations that are created when we learn to recognize objects by sight or by touch, and how these representations may differ based on the complexity of objects. Participants learned to recognize simple or complex objects by sight or by touch (some also completed a distraction task designed to interfere with verbal or visual encoding) and later recognized them in both modalities. Results showed that participants who learned to recognize simple objects required fewer blocks to reach criterion and produced fewer errors compared to participants who learned to recognize complex objects. Participants who learned to recognize objects by sight produced fewer errors than participants who learned to recognize objects by touch. Participants who learned to recognize objects by touch produced fewer errors during visual identification than haptic identification, replicating the violation of encoding specificity. Testing interruptions prevented us from getting enough participants to detect an impact of the distractor task. Potential memory representations for objects will be discussed.