Which memory representation creates the violation of encoding specificity?

Abstract

Past research has shown that object identification performance differs when people learn to recognize objects by sight or by touch, such that the representation of haptically presented objects seems to be richer than the representation of visually presented objects, resulting in a violation of encoding specificity. However, these studies were conducted using simple objects that were easy to describe verbally. In the present study, I used objects that were not easy to describe verbally. I examined how mental representations differ between simple shape objects and multi-feature objects, and whether they differ when individuals learn to recognize novel objects by sight or by touch. I planned to first conduct an online matching task to evaluate the effectiveness of specific distractors. In Experiment 2, participants would be asked to learn to recognize novel objects by sight or by touch, then to identify them using both modalities. One third of participants would experience the control condition, 1/3 would have completed a verbal distractor task, and 1/3 would have completed a visuospatial distractor task. It was expected that the multi-feature objects would be more difficult to learn than the simple shape set, and that a tapping distractor would restore encoding specificity in individuals learning to recognize novel objects by touch, since these participants make use of visuospatial cues during encoding. Additionally, this distractor was expected to interfere more with learning the multi-feature objects than the simple shape set. Due to unexpected circumstances, testing was not possible. In sum, the type of memory representations that we develop depend on our experiences with the world.