Imagery retrieval may explain why recall of negative scenes contains more accurate detail

Abstract

We investigated whether the presence of imagery at retrieval was associated with the finding that negative pictures and scenes are recalled with greater perceptual detail. Participants were presented with 30 scenes taken from the International Affective Picture System that were rated either high or low on valence, but similarly on arousal. Recall was prompted with matched visual or verbal cues. During recall, participants reported any images that came to mind and rated them for vividness, whereas accuracy was rated independently. Imagery was described at test in response to over 60% of the stimuli. Whereas vividness was predicted by negative valence, images occurred more often in response to visual cues. The association of negative valence and visual cueing with better recall was observed only in the presence of reported imagery. These findings have important implications for models and experiments focusing on the recall and recognition of visual stimuli. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.3758/s13421-018-0876-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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“…The role played by subjective experience is often overlooked, not just in attitude and belief surveys, but in experimental studies. There is growing evidence, for example, that spontaneous visual imagery commonly accompanies many unrelated tasks (Brewin & Soni, 2011;Schlagman & Kvavilashvili, 2008) and is an unacknowledged influence on visual memory task performance (Brewin & Langley, 2018). More generally, it has been noted that there are few if any laws of memory, with performance varying considerably according to the situations, people, and materials involved (Roediger, 2008).…”

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