Image detail and recall: evidence for within-item elaboration

Four experiments were conducted to investigate the role of image detail on recall. It was found in all four experiments that greater image detail facilitated recall from an uncategorized list. This result was found with two different uncategorized lists and held when detail was manipulated both through image size and through capacity limitation. However, no effect of image detail on recall was found for categorized lists used in Experiments 3 and 4. The results are discussed in terms of within-item and between-item encoding elaboration, and the effect of these types of elaboration on retrieval strategies is also discussed.