Influence of object size on baseline identification, priming, and explicit memory

We investigated the influence of size on identification, priming, and explicit memory for color photos of common objects. Participants studied objects displayed in small, medium, and large sizes and memory was assessed with both implicit identification and explicit recognition tests. Overall, large objects were easier to identify than small objects and study-to-test changes in object size impeded performance on explicit but not implicit memory tests. In contrast to previous findings with line-drawings of objects but consistent with predictions from the distance-as-filtering hypothesis, we found that study-test size manipulations had large effects on old/new recognition memory test for objects displayed in large size at test but not for objects displayed small or medium at test. Our findings add to the growing body of literature showing that the findings obtained using line-drawings of objects do not necessarily generalize to color photos of common objects. We discuss implications of our findings for theories of object perception, memory, and eyewitness identification accuracy for objects.