Memory representations for visually learned objects and haptically learned objects: Verbally or visually coded?

Abstract

The encoding specificity principle states that retrieval is most efficient when the retrieval conditions match the conditions when the memory was encoded. However, previous studies have demonstrated a violation of this principle for objects learned by touch, for which identification was equally efficient by sight and by touch. This indicates that sight and touch have a shared memory representation. The present study was concerned with the nature of this shared representation, whether it was primarily visual, verbal, or a combination of both. Seventy-seven participants completed a learning phase where they were asked to learn to recognize eight novel objects haptically or visually. Participants completed the learning phase while being presented with either a verbal, visual, haptic distractor, or no distractor. They then completed an experimental phase where there were presented with an object they could see and one they could touch; they were asked to identify one of the objects and ignore the other. We replicated the violation of encoding specificity, found that visual distractor interfered with haptic identification, and while we hypothesized that a distractor would interfere, none significantly did. This may have been because our interference did not require participants to actively engage with the distractors.