Visual and Verbal Codes: Spatial Information Survives the Icon

Abstract

Three experiments are reported to demonstrate partial independence of identity and spatial position information concerning visually presented symbols. Experiment I shows that performance on these forms of information improves at different rates as a function of exposure duration. Experiment II shows that performance on one can be traded against the other. Experiment III demonstrates partial statistical independence of item and position responses and shows that increases in the duration and delay of the probe facilitate performance. Some implications of these experiments for theories involving mandatory verbal encoding of visual symbol-arrays are discussed. A model is proposed comprising visual and name stores with different acquisition rates and capacities. Both are indexed by identity but the visual code can also be interrogated by spatial cues.