Memory for descriptive and spatial information in complex pictures.

Memory for several kinds of information in complex pictures was studied. Stimuli were line drawings of either real-world scenes or unorganized collections of objects. Memory was tested by recognition and reconstruction tests, given immediately and/or after a week. Organization of the pictures had little effect on memory for size, orientation, or physical appearance of objects in the pictures. There was only a small loss of these types of descriptive information over a week's time. Organization of the pictures had a major effect on memory for location of objects in the pictures. Memory for location on the horizontal dimension declined markedly for both types of pictures over a week. Performance remained high on the vertical dimension for organized pictures, and systematic distortion occurred on this dimension for unorganized pictures. Reconstruction data were compared with the performance of subjects who had not seen the pictures before. It was concluded that real-world schemata do not affect encoding of some types of descriptive information, but play an important role in both encoding and memory for spatial information.