Repetition effects in auditory and visual recognition

Repetition manipulations are robust ways of manipulating levels of memory performance, but are not without exception. A recent paper (Kassim, Rehman, & Price, 2018) found effects of repetition on visual and multi-modal recognition but not on auditory recognition in a continuous recognition task. We aimed to replicate and generalize this result by testing continuous recognition in three experiments and in a standard old/new recognition in a fourth experiment. Experiment 1 showed that repetition did affect auditory recognition in a continuous recognition task, but to a lesser extent than visual recognition. Experiment 2 demonstrated that the difference in repetition effects between auditory and visual modalities was due to a speed/accuracy tradeoff in the visual recognition condition; when reaction times were similar in the visual and auditory conditions repetition effects were the same in the two modalities. Experiment 3 replicated the repetition effects when performance was lower than in Experiments 1 and 2. Experiment 4 showed that repetition affected both auditory and visual recognition in an old/new recognition task, and to approximately the same extent. Thus, while evidence has suggested that auditory recognition is more difficult than visual recognition, it may depend on the types of stimuli and the type of test. Overall, the mechanics of auditory and visual recognition for words appear to be similar in that they are affected by repetition in similar ways.