Does the animacy effect extend to images? A registered replication report.

Abstract

Animate entities tend to be remembered better than inanimate objects. Bonin et al. (2014) demonstrated this animacy effect on memory with picture stimuli and as such is often referenced to show that the animacy effect extends beyond verbal stimuli. This registered report intended to replicate this classic and oft-cited study with two modifications: we used photographs instead of black-and-white line drawings, and we did not have these stimuli accompanied by verbal labels. Under these conditions, we were unable to replicate the animate advantage, indicating constraints on the generalizability of the animacy effect in memory for visual stimuli. We hypothesise that the animacy effect in free recall may depend on the extent to which visual stimuli invite elaborate semantic processing, which may be strengthened by verbal labels or simplified visual depictions. We therefore call for additional work on the animacy effect's sensitivity to stimulus format and encoding context.