The representation of pictures in memory.

The two experiments presented in this article examined the memory representation of pictorial information. The technique used to investigate structure was priming in item recognition. Subjects studied a list of pictures and then were tested for recognition of parts of pictures. In Experiment 1, the time to recognize a target part of a picture was speeded (primed) if the immediately preceding part in the test list was from the same picture. This priming effect was larger if the two parts were interacting with each other in the picture than if they were not interacting. Experiment 2 showed more priming between the interacting, foreground parts of a picture than between one of the interacting parts and a background part. For noninteracting parts, priming between foreground parts was equal to priming between foreground and background parts. It is suggested that priming may prove a useful technique for investigating other aspects of the representation of pictorial information.