Facial and pictorial recognition as a function of massed versus distributed presentation and imaging instructions

Beneficial effects of distributed practice and rehearsal on recognition has been demonstrated in numerous memory studies for verbal stimuli and manual skills. However, no research has been reported using non-verbal, pictorial stimuli. In addition, few studies have examined the effects of pictorial rehearsal. The present research examines the effects of massed versus distributed practice and post-exposure imaging on pictorial memory. The first and third experiments used faces while the second used plant stimuli. In general, the results showed beneficial effects for post-presentation imaging. Presentation mode produced complex effects, but generally supported the superiority of distributed presentation. The results of Experiment 3 also indicated that the effects of presentation mode and post-exposure task depend on whether the same or different view of the studied material is given at test and the kind of distractor task used. Implications for the improvement of visual-spatial memory using distributed presentation and post-exposure imaging are discussed