Distortions in Visual Memory: Reply to Engebretson and Huttenlocher (1996)

P. H. Engebretson and J. Huttenlocher (1996) commented on an article by the authors (B. Tversky & D. Schiano, 1989) in which the authors reported that the same lines or curves were distorted in memory differently when interpreted as graph elements than as map elements. In subsequent work (D. Schiano & B. Tversky, 1992), the authors found a different pattern of error for meaningless lines, a pattern consistent with a well-known perceptual effect, the tilt illusion. Engebretson and Huttenlocher's comment was primarily directed at this tilt-illusion account. The comment presented an alternative explanation that was based on a model of J. Huttenlocher, L. V. Hedges, and S. Duncan (1991) and reported 2 experiments on uninterpreted stimuli. The results of those experiments, however, are consistent with established findings in the tilt-illusion and memory-interference literatures.