Effects of colored separate and interactive pictures on cued recall

Participants (N = 509) were tested for backward cued recall of concrete noun pairs illustrated with pictures. Recall was considerably higher when a picture showed an interactive relationship than when the two items were drawn separately. However, with separate pictures in which the stimulus drawing appeared in a color that bore a direct relationship to the response object or when both drawings shared a color that was not related to the response object, recall was higher than with uncolored drawings. Performance was even better when the shared color was associated with the response object, although it remained below that with uncolored interactive pictures. The positive effects of shared colors did not occur with interactive pictures, but recall improved further when the response color appeared either in the stimulus or response portions of the combined drawing. It is concluded that cued recall is mediated by common elements and that the effects are additive, at least with separate pictures.