Effects of Stimulus Modality and Working Memory Load on Mental Synthesis Performance

Abstract

Previous work on mental synthesis has suggested that verbal presentation of stimuli may encourage considerable reliance on verbal rehearsal, as well as the generation of images from long-term memory. An experiment is reported which contrasts verbal and visual presentation of stimuli on synthesis performance, as well as the effect of having the presented stimuli continuously visible. The results demonstrate significant effects of stimulus modality and working memory load on participants' performance. These findings are interpreted in terms of cognitive differences between images generated directly from visual traces, and images generated from long-term memory in response to verbal cues.