[Asymmetric confusability effects in recognition memory of butterfly pictures]

The relation between recognition of butterfly pictures involving feature changes (additions, deletions, or no change) and discordance to expectation for those pictures was examined. The addition of deletion of features was applied to original butterfly photographs to generate changed pictures. Forty subjects were asked to rate the discordance of these pictures to expected butterflies. Other subjects were shown original pictures and then given a recognition test of original pictures and changed pictures with features added or deleted. The results showed that (a) additions or deletions increased discordance more markedly than no changes; (b) additions were easier to correctly rejected than deletions; and (c) recognition performance was not dependent on discordance. It was concluded that addition superiority over deletion was not mediated by the factor of discordance to expectation.