Comprehending and remembering briefly presented action pictures: effects of repetition

Most of what is known about comprehension and memory of briefly presented visual stimuli comes from studies using pictured scenes and objects. Psycholinguistic and neuropsychological research suggests that there are different processing requirements for actions (verbs) and objects (nouns). Our study investigated whether the cognitive phenomenon of repetition blindness, previously obtained using both object and word stimuli, occurs for briefly presented repeated photographed actions. The aim of the research was to investigate whether our ability to identify and remember what we see at rapid rates of presentation differs for pictured actions. The results differed from the pattern observed with objects or with words, and the effects of variables that might have contributed to the results were explored. Implications for theories of visual processing and memory, as well as psycholinguistic processing of nouns and verbs are considered.