Effects of size congruency on item and size recognition with words or pictures

The effect of size changes (8:1 or 1:8) between learning and recognition sessions upon item and size recognition was tested, using either pictures or words as stimuli. Participants (N = 34) viewed color photographs of everyday objects or the corresponding printed words and then performed 160 trials of a recognition task, including 50% new stimuli, for which they had to indicate whether each item had been seen before and whether its size had changed. Item recognition, for pictures only, was improved by size congruency between the learning and test sessions. In contrast, size recognition was raised by learning/test-size congruency for both pictures and words. Both word- and picture-learning stimuli produced higher item and size recognition when large in area rather than small. The data are interpreted as showing the stronger role of spatial coding with pictorial than with verbal stimuli.