Influence of active encoding on tactile recognition memory for common objects.

Active tactile recognition memory for common objects is compared with passive touch. The recognition memory test occure after a delay between inspection and test of seven days. Three groups of five each have the following conditions and results: Group I manipulated objects at both inspection and test to obtain a recognition rate of 87.9%; Group II manipulated objects at inspection but not at test, i.e., passive touch, to produce a recognition rate of 80.7%; Group III manipulated objects at test but not at inspection to perform at a 72.5% accuracy rate. Object manipulation had a significant effect and the group means were all significantly different (p less than or equal to .05), with the largest performance decrement due to passive touch at encoding. Generally, the findings implicated the importance of object identity in tactile recognition memory which, in turn, is supportive of the depth-of-processing approach to memory.