Depth of Processing Pictures of Faces and Recognition Memory

These studies ask whether S remembers a picture better the greater the "depth of processing" he allots to it. Depth of processing pictures of faces was varied according to judgments of sex ("superficial") or judgments of likableness or honesty of the person pictured. Performance on a later recognition memory test was high for pictures judged for likableness or honesty, and low for pictures judged for sex. This ordering held as'true for intentional learners as for incidental learners. A final experiment showed that face recognition memory was not materially affected by a context manipulation: an old test picture was remembered at a level determined by its original depth of processing and independently of how it was tested—either alone, along side an old picture it had been studied with, or with a new picture.