Effect of Caption Meaning on Memory

for Nonsense Figures

C E C I L E B. M c A N I N C H

University of Kentucky
J O Y L. A U S T I N , A N D P E T E R L. D E R K S

College of William and Mary

Recognition and recall of simple nonsense figures were investigated. Five different
relations between captions and figures were tested: no caption, physically descriptive,
abstract, meaningful, and humorous. Thirty nonsense figures were presented with
captions of a particular relation followed by an additional 30 figures that required the
subjects to generate the same type of captions. Following distraction, the subjects
attempted to recall and draw all 60 figures. Fifteen of the first thirty figures that had
supplied captions were then tested for recognition without their captions. Recall of
figures with supplied humorous captions was best and abstract captions resulted in
poorest recall. For generated captions, meaningful and no caption conditions were
best recalled and descriptive captions were worst. This interaction between source of
caption and type of meaning indicates that certain information such as humor can be
relatively more helpful if supplied than if generated. Recognition was better for recalled
figures but without an interaction with caption meaning or error type. Thus, in the
present study, the captions served as retrieval cues without significantly influencing
memory for the figure itself.

A meaningful interpretation will improve memory for an otherwise ambiguous form

(Wiseman & Neisser, 1974; Wiseman, MacLeod, & Lootsteen, 1985). One kind of
meaningful organization of nonsense material is humor. Bower, Karlin, and Dueck
(1975) used "droodles," nonsensical line drawings that may be interpreted with amusing captions, and found that memory for the figures was improved by those captions.
The addition of irrelevant labels was no more effective on free recall than no label at
all (Klatzky & Rafnel, 1976). Rafnel and Klatzky (1978) then used humorous,
nonmeaningful, descriptive, and no captions to extend the general result that a humorous, meaningful caption would benefit recall and confidence in the recognition of
semantically equivalent targets.
Nevertheless, equating humor and meaning may not be appropriate. The effect of
humor on memory is neither simple nor consistent (Zillman & Bryant, 1983). H u m o r
has been found to sometimes help, sometimes hinder, and sometimes have no effect on
m e m o r y (Chapman & Crompton, 1978). Indeed when factors that contribute to humor,
such as imagery and arousal, are manipulated independently of funniness, humor has
been found to have very little exclusive effect on m e m o r y (Sagaria & Derks, 1985).
Therefore, the role of humor, per se, in m e m o r y for form is still uncertain.
In recognition memory Rafnel and Klatzky (1978) found that a humorous caption

CurrentPsychology: Research & Reviews, Winter 1992-93, Vol. 11, No. 4, 315-323.

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Current Psychology / Winter 1992-93

enabled subjects to select semantically correct options. They were not, however, better
at avoiding distractions with slight physical changes. These results demonstrated a link
between recognition and recall where a meaningful code for recall would influence the
semantic information employed in recognition. Such a result might supply a potential
exception to the empirical law of recognition failure that indicates independence of
recognition and recall (Tulving & Wiseman, 1975). Still, Rafnel and Klatzky's signal
detection analysis did not show a clear link between a semantic code and a physical
code. The relation between false alarms and correct responses (d') did not seem to be
related to caption type. Nevertheless, an analysis of recognition errors both with and
without correct recall still might indicate a change in the physical code as indicated in
earlier research (Carmichael, Hogan, & Walter, 1932; Ranken, 1963).
Furthermore, the "meaningful" labels for the nonsense figures were developed to be
funny (Price, 1972, 1973). Their role as mnemonics has only been tested indirectly in
previously research. As an encoding device humor may supply a richer source of
retrieval information than mere meaning. On the other hand, the additional task of
decoding or generating a funny label may reduce the efficiency of storage and retrieval. Indeed, Rafnel and Klatzky's subjects had difficulty just generating meaningful
and descriptive captions. Still, college students have demonstrated a talent for generating humor (Derks & Hervas, 1988). In order to examine the relative efficacy of
meaning and humor as mnemonics for form, both supplied and generated labels should
be examined.
Therefore, the present study examined two related issues. First, are some mnemonic
codes more likely to engage recognition with recall in memory for form? It was
hypothesized that meaning and humor would link semantic recognition and recall
while less relevant coding would leave them independent. To emphasize this linkage,
recognition was tested after recall.
Second, can meaning and humor serve effectively as generated mnemonics for nonsense forms? The depth of analysis rational applied to the earlier studies clearly predicts an advantage for humor in memory. A more meaningful description of a figure
would lack the problem solving necessary to make the caption humorous as well. On
the other hand, such problem solving could also serve as a distraction and reduce
effective encoding. In any case, both humor and meaning should result in better
memory than a physical description or an abstract (i.e. unrelated, meaningful) caption.
Finally, the no caption condition was included as an indication of how the subjects
would generate captions on their own.
The present generation task does not coincide with the generation effect delineated
by Slamecka and Graf (1978) and especially Peynircio~lu (1989). The subjects in this
study were generating cues to recall, not the items to be recalled. Nevertheless, the
results are relevant for the theory of data driven vs. conceptually driven information
processing investigated by Pring, Freestone, and Katan (1990). They used blind and
sighted children in an attempt to manipulate the use of sensation or conception in the
development of a memory code. The present study supplied different kinds of stimulus
consistent information or required the participants to supply their own description of

McA ninch, Austin, and Derks

317

the stimulus. A difference between the two procedures in memory would demonstrate
a relative effect, detrimental or advantageous, of cognitive involvement in a perceptual
task.
Recent studies by Marks (1989, 1991) have demonstrated such an advantage. His
approach relied on incidental learning while the present study was more nearly focused on explicit memory. The theoretical implication of these experiments, and the
present study, was for interpreting memory for form through the depth of processing
approach of Craik (Craik & Lockhart, 1972; Craik & Tulving, 1975). Thus the present
study has theoretical implications both for memory for form and for humor as a
mnemonic.
METHOD

Subjects
Ninety-three Introductory Psychology students were subjects after being recruited to
serve in a study of "memory for form." They received credit toward their participation
requirement and were tested by condition in groups of 17 to 20.

Materials
Sixty nonsense drawings were taken from Price (1972, 1973), Wallach and Kogan
(1965), and created by the authors. Given the variety of sources, this sample should be
representative of nonsense figures in general. Humorous captions were used where
available or were created in the spirit of droodles. Meaningful captions were developed by generating several possible descriptions of each picture and selecting the least
funny. The selection of the meaningful captions and evaluation of the created humorous captions were based on ratings by 25 Introductory Psychology students recruited
in the same way and from the same population as the subjects in the memory part of
the experiment. On a scale from 1 (low) to 7 (high) the final set of meaningful captions
was rated an average of 5.02 (SD = .79) on meaning and 1.90 (SD = .50) for humor. The
averages for humorous captions were 4.31 (SD=.54) on meaning and 4.01 (SD = .91) on
humor.
The descriptive captions used numerical, spatial, and geometric terms to describe the
pictures as simply and accurately as possible. The abstract captions were book titles,
metaphors, and clich6s assigned to the pictures at random. The pictures were also
presented without captions. Thus there were five caption conditions; humorous, meaningful, descriptive, abstract, and none.
The stimuli were presented to the subjects in two booklets. The first contained 30
pictures with captions appropriate to the experimental condition. The second was
composed of pictures without captions so that the subjects could generate their own.
Each booklet contained a different random order of the stimuli.
Recognition was tested with a third booklet that contained fifteen of the first thirty
stimuli. The final thirty stimuli with generated captions were not tested, as there was

Current Psychology / Winter 1992-93

318

no control of how the captions would relate to the stimuli. Each page included the
correct target and five distractor items. The distractors were mirror images (either
horizontal or vertical) of the correct stimulus, physical changes, semantic changes, and
their mirror images. The physical changes were essentially minor, specific additions to
the original figure. The semantic changes were more global modifications of the organization of the stimulus that retained the elements of the original. In short, the distractor
items followed the lead of Rafnel and Klatzky (1978) while introducing additional
mirror image conditions. A preliminary study with the same materials and humorous,
descriptive, and randomly assigned humorous captions replicated their results of humorous captions showing best recognition and fewest semantic errors (McAninch,
1989).

Procedure
Subjects were presented with the first booklet and asked to examine each page until
the experimenter said "turn," then move on to the next page. The study time per page
was 10 seconds. After the first book was completed, the second book was distributed.
The subjects were instructed to generate a phrase, similar in type to the phrases they
had just seen in the first book. The no caption group was told to make "notes on the
figure." The captions were written on a page separate from the book. Thirty seconds
were necessary but usually sufficient for this task. Nevertheless, sometimes captions
could not be generated and pages stuck together or were lost. Stimuli not completed
for each condition averaged; none=0.89, descriptive=l.15, abstract=2.00, meaningful=l.06, and humorous=l.70. Thus the abstract condition was most difficult but not
significantly so, F(4, 88) = 1.36, p=.25.
In order to prevent additional rehearsal the subjects were given a page of anagrams
to decode. They worked on these for three minutes. Then the anagrams were collected
and the subjects were given blank paper and asked to draw as many figures from both
books as they could. They were told that these drawings did not have to be perfect and
they should just draw what they could remember. Fifteen minutes for recall allowed
the subjects to exhaust retrieval.
Finally, the subjects were given the recognition booklets and an answer sheet to
identify the original picture they had seen out of the six recognition items for each of
the 15 stimuli tested. There were two forms of these booklets with different orders.
RESULTS

Recall: Supplied Captions

The recall of the stimuli was all or none. All the reproductions from the subjects
could be matched with one of the original stimuli with no possible confusions. The
scores are presented as proportion correct to be equivalent to recall for generated
captions. Proportions correct according to condition are presented in Table 1.
Pictures with humorous captions were recalled best and those with abstract captions

McA ninch, Austin, and Derks

319

TABLEI
Proportion Recalled ~rCaptionsSuppliedand Generated

None

Descriptive

Abstract

Meaningful

Humorous

Supplied

.282

.297

.208

.330

.398

Generated

.676

.437

.470

.667

.610

were recalled worst, F(4 ' 8s)=6.14, MSe=.OI 4, p<.001. Humorous captions produced a
little over two more items recalled than meaningful. This proportional difference was
significant by preplanned t tests, C.diff.(88)=.065, p=.05. Descriptive captions and
captionless pictures resulted in about equal recall. Significantly less recall followed
abstract captions than any other condition.

Recall: Generated Captions

The captions generated by the subjects were examined for consistency with the
supplied captions. Four psychology student aides judged the sets of captions generated
by the subjects as being a result of priming by the descriptive, meaningful, abstract, or
humorous conditions. Caption sets generated following descriptive captions were judged
descriptive 98% of the time. For captions in the meaningful condition the first choice
was meaningful 80% and humorous 17%. Abstract captions were picked as abstract
80% and humorous 18%. Humorous were judged humorous 67% and meaningful
27%. This proportion is in spite of one judge who, lacking a sense of humor, called
86% of the humor caption sets meaningful. In the no caption condition 53% of the
generated sets of "notes" were judged meaningful, 36% descriptive, and 10% humorous.
In Table 1, recall was adjusted for unproduced captions and is presented as proportion recalled of captions created. The no caption group recalled most with meaningful
a fraction less. Humorous attempts produced nearly two fewer recalled pictures but
were not significantly lower, C.diff.(88)=.089, p=.05. Descriptive and abstract captions
yielded the lowest recall scores, F(4,s8)=8.73, MSe=.027, p<.001.

Supplied vs. Generated

Memory for pictures in the second set benefitted from both recency and exposure
time. Therefore, performance on recall was superior for the second set, /7(1' 88)=153.40,
MSe=.022, p<.0001. Of particular interest in this study, however, was the distribution
of the effect of two sources of mnemonics in memory for form. The interaction

Current Psychology / Winter 1992-93

320

between recall with supplied or generated captions was significant, F(4,88)=4.36,

MSe=.022, p<.003.
Two factors contributed to this effect. The condition with no captions benefitted
from the subjects' freedom to develop their own mnemonics. On the other hand, the
humor condition suffered relative to no caption and a meaningful caption if these
captions were generated by the participant.

Recognition
Table 2 presents recognition errors conditionalized on whether an item was recalled
or not before recognition was tested. The errors are tabulated by caption type and error
type, that is, the particular distractor chosen. Although recognition failures were frequent, the relative magnitude of the error rates was somewhat distorted by the different
denominators used to conditionalize. Nevertheless, an analysis of variance was performed to estimate the relative effects of captions and recall on error types. Nonrecall
of an item was followed by a higher proportion of errors than recall, nonrecalled=.311
and recalled=.243, F(I ' 88)=5.76, MSe=.O082, p<.02. Caption type, however, did not result in a significant difference in recognition errors,/7(4, 88)=1.60, MSe=.O08,p=.18. Even
taken overall, without distinguishing error type or recall vs. non-recall (RE/R+N) the
advantage of humorous captions found for recall was not quite significant for recognition,
]7(4 ' 88)=2.09, MSe=.027, p=.09.
The error types were differentially distributed with mirror image distractors receiving most erroneous choices followed closely by physical change, F(4. 35e)=32.61,
MSe=.O095, p<.0001. The advantage for humorous captions on semantic distractors
found by Rafnel and Klatzky and in the pilot study was not significant in this experiment, C.diff.(352)=.053, p=.05. Nevertheless, recognition errors occurred for nonrecall
in every condition with every distractor type. These errors suggest that the recognition
task was sensitive enough to reveal differences in the conditions if they existed. There
are, indeed, some separations in recognition for recalled and nonrecalled figures. Particularly, nonrecalled meaningfully captioned figures were relatively confused with
mirror distractors and nonrecalled abstract captioned figures showed an increased
choice of semantic distractors. Nevertheless, there was no significant interaction of
error type with caption type or recall vs. non-recall, all F's<l.0. In other words, recognition failures were not distributed differently than recognition errors following recall
failures. Apparently whatever aspect of recognition was facilitated by recall was not
significantly related to any particular type of recognition cue.
DISCUSSION
In general these results support the concept of a caption for a nonsense figure as a
source for retrieval. Recall benefits from a relevant, meaningful label. If, however, the
subjective production of that label is too elemental (descriptive) or difficult (humor),
retrieval suffers. Thus the conception of the stimulus influences recall as proposed by
Marks, and Pring, Freestone and Katan.

McAninch, Austin, and Derks

321

TABLE2

Propo~ion RecognitionErrors(RE)WhenItems WereRecalled(R) orNot(N)

Error

Caption Type

None

Descriptive

Abstract

Meaningful

Humorous

Mirror
R

.114

.123

.105

.084

.071

.141

.121

.128

.146

.077

.044

.113

.074

.091

.048

.065

.i00

.114

.095

.090

Physical

Physical Mirror
R

.019

.0

.0

.0

.010

.014

.016

.017

.005

.027

.015

.060

.029

.073

.030

.047

.045

.103

.038

.024

Semantic

Semantic Mirror
R

.025

.0

.048

.028

.013

.033

.025

.058

.027

.018

RE/R+N

.311

.300

.365

.296

.210

Current Psychology / Winter 1992-93

322

As for recognition, the process was quite robust relative to caption type. Recognition
failures did occur but the recognition of unrecalled items demonstrated the presence of
some physical code for the nonsense figures even in the absence of effective retrieval.
Richardson-Klavehn and Bjork (1988) have pointed out the inherent difficulties in
testing the independence of recognition and recall when the same subject is tested on
the same item. Furthermore, the present study tested recognition after recall to try to
link the captions more directly with the figures. The presence of relatively more
recognition failures for unrecalled items over recalled items does not indicate an
exception to the empirical findings of recognition-recall independence, especially since
the distribution of recognition failures was not significantly different by caption types.
Apparently the physical codes of elements and their relations were registered without being greatly influenced by the label used for retrieval. MacLeod (1986), also
using droodles, found that the figures and the labels could be presented at different
times and still matched. Thus considerable imaginal information can be encoded and
used without an explicit label. Such "non-thematic pictorial detail" has a significant
role in memory for form (Homa & Viera, 1988; Mandler & Johnson, 1976). Perhaps
this item-specific information is registered automatically (Hasher and Zachs, 1979).
Consequently, covert rehearsal would have little effect. Indeed, it has long been known
that recognition memory for form is much less influenced, if affected at all, by labels
than is recall (Bahrick & Boucher, 1968; Riley, 1962). Nevertheless, humorous captions
did result in fewer recognition errors than no captions. All other caption types produced
more recognition errors. Although not significant in this study, the effect does warrant
further examination for its implications to theories of data or concept-driven recognition.
In summary, recall accompanied improved recognition without shifting error type.
Recall, on the other hand, was influenced by meaning and source of caption. Humorous
captions were not the same as meaningful captions, aiding recall more when supplied
and somewhat less when generated.
NOTES
We thank W. Larry Ventis for valuable suggestions about this research and for his aid in the creation of
captions.
Date of acceptance for publication: August 27, 199l. Correspondence should be addressed to Peter
Derks, Departmentof Psychology,College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, VA 23185.
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