Presentation Format Effects in a Levels-of-Processing Task Paul W. Foos and Paula Goolkasian University of North Carolina, Charlotte, NC, USA Abstract. Three experiments were conducted to examine better performance in long-term memory when stimulus items are pictures or spoken words compared to printed words. Hypotheses regarding the allocation of attention to printed words, the semantic link between pictures and processing, and a rich long-term representation for pictures were tested. Using levels-of-processing tasks eliminated format effects when no memory test was expected and processing was deep (E1), and when study and test formats did not match (E3). Pictures produced superior performance when a memory test was expected (E1 & 2) and when study and test formats were the same (E3). Results of all experiments support the attenuation of attention model and that picture superiority is due to a more direct access to semantic processing and a richer visual code. General principles to guide the processing of stimulus information are discussed. Keywords: format effects, recognition memory, levels of processing One of the benefits of living in the information age is that we have the tools to present information in any number of formats and modalities. Which one we choose should be guided by our desire as scientists and educators to maxi- mize the impact of the flow of that piece of information. Although the effect of presentation format has had a long and rich research history, it is somewhat fragmented; as a result, there are few general principles that psychological science can offer as a guide for efficient processing of stim- ulus information. The present research integrates previous work with picture/word (e.g., Kosslyn, 1980; Paivio, 1975) and auditory/visual (e.g., Greene, 1985; Penney, 1989) comparisons by exploring why printed words are not re- called as well as other presentation formats (e.g., pictures and spoken words; Foos & Goolkasian, 2005; Goolkasian & Foos, 2002). Three experiments extend the investigation of format effects beyond encoding processes and working memory by using a levels of processing (LoP) approach (e.g., Craik & Lockhart, 1972) to examine whether effects of presentation format remain in long-term memory even after participants have encoded the stimulus items to the same levels. Previous work that examined format differences in the visual modality found better memory for pictures than for words when explicit memory was tested (e.g., Goolkasian & Park, 1980; Kroll & Corrigan, 1981; Paivio, 1975, 1978; Pellegrino, Rosinski, Chiesi, & Siegel, 1977; Smith & Ma- gee, 1980) and in tests of implicit memory which ask for semantic information (e.g., asking participants to name members of some category; e.g., McBride & Dosher, 2002; Wippich, Melzer, & Mecklenbräuker, 1998). Paivio’s dual coding theory (1975) and Nelson’s (1979) sensory-seman- tic model of encoding influenced this work and much of our later thinking with respect to picture-word differences. The differences obtained in these studies were thought to be the result of encoding. Pictures may have dual codes (e.g., Paivio, 1975), more distinctive encoding, or more di- rect access to semantic coding (e.g., Nelson, 1979) in com- parison to printed words. Still another model (Larkin & Simon, 1987) indicates that the picture-word difference lies in the way information is extracted from the different for- mats. Some features may be directly represented in a pic- ture that must be inferred from a word. They suggest that picture-word differences lie in the efficiency of the search for information and differences in explicitness of the infor- mation. The emphasis in this approach is on the richness of the pictorial representation following encoding. Other work examined auditory-visual modality differ- ences. Better memory for auditory presentation, particular- ly for the last several items in a list, has been found (re- ferred to as the modality effect; e.g., Cowan, Saults, Elliot, & Moreno, 2002; Gardiner, Gardiner, & Gregg, 1983; Ga- thercole & Conway, 1988; Greene, 1985; Greene, Elliott, & Smith, 1988) and has been shown to consist of sustained superiority for these auditory items, as well as a brief ad- vantage due to echoic storage that can be eliminated by other auditory input (i.e., the suffix effect; see Crowder, 1972; Goolkasian & Foos, 2002; Penney, 1989). The long- term modality effect takes place in long-term memory, and is found for both serial and free recall (Cowan et al., 2002; Gardiner et al., 1983; Greene & Crowder, 1986). Because the superiority of pictures over printed words involves encoding processes to some degree – although the exact nature of the difference in encoding is much debated – we decided to focus on working memory where encoding takes place. This work (Goolkasian & Foos, 2002) exam- ined retrieval from working memory and compared all three types of presentation using a dual task. These studies found little influence of format on the processing task but strong effects on item recall. Stimulus items presented as DOI 10.1027/1618-3169.55.4.215 © 2008 Hogrefe & Huber Publishers Experimental Psychology 2008; Vol. 55(4):215–227