Recoding processes in recognition: Some effects of presentation rate.

Character classification time was studied in a situation in which Ss sometimes had to decide whether a probe item was a translation of a remembered item according to a previously learned translation scheme. When translation between probe and remembered items was necessary, the rate at which the to-be-remembered items had been presented affected the form of the memory-scanning functions. This result seemed to contradict Cruse and Clifton's (1973) hypothesis that Ss translated all remembered items into the form of the probe after the probe was presented. An alternative model claimed that, when time permits, Ss translate to-be-remembered items into their alternate form at the time of presentation and scan the resulting translated items at a relatively slow rate if the probe matches them in form. If Ss are unable to translate the to-be-remembered items when they are presented, they resort to the strategy of translating the probe item into the form in which the remembered items had been presented.