Uni-Representational Vs. Cross-Representational Difference in Imagery Formation: Verification of Dual Coding Theory

Dual coding theory states that information is stored by visual and verbal channel separately. During formation of imagery the visual and verbal channels are used distinctly. The study explores how retrieval of visual imageries of natural scenes varies with the variation in representational forms of encoding and recognition. Each stimulus set contained two different cards for encoding and recognition purpose. Both encoding and recognition of visual scenes were varied in both pictorial (picture form) and linguistic (word form) mode. Thus four plausible conditions are pictorial encoding associated with pictorial recognition, pictorial encoding and linguistic recognition; linguistic encoding and linguistic recognition and lastly, linguistic encoding with pictorial recognition. The aim of the study is to see whether the mode of object representation influences imagery formation. The aim of the study is to explore which kind of representation benefits recognition of imagery. 40 female University students (21 to 23 years) were selected and randomly assigned in to four experimental conditions. From each participant data was collected in the laboratory set up in a single session. Nine stimulus cards were presented to each subject. Presentation of a single stimulus card in encoding situation was followed by the recognition situation. The two way ANOVA result shows changing the representational forms has significant effects on retrieval.  The present finding supports the notion of Dual coding hypothesis with an additional observation that poor retrieval in case of pictorial recognition when the information has been encoded linguistically.