The purpose of this experiment is to see if category length influences hit and false alarm rates in the same way for both words and faces. For unknown stimuli, such as novel faces used here, there is no data but predictions of various quantitative models of memory.
Most models predict no difference between familiar and novel items.
A previous version of this experiment showed similar results for both words and faces. The only difference between the previous and current version of the experiment are the face categories. An unpublished manuscript of the initial experiment can be found here . Return to Top Method Materials Words and faces made up the stimuli. Each word category consisted of one prototype word and 11 exemplars.