The Influence of Verbal Labelling on the Retention of Picture Stimuli: An Alternative Viewpoint
as thinking was believed to consist of subvocal speech, so memory was thought to consist of translating experiences into words and using these words as a basis for reconstructing the original. Second, its slender empirical base drew mainly upon the rather primitive work of the early pioneers. Experiments, notably those by Kuhlmann (1907), Bartlett (1932), and Jenkin (1935), had discredited the view that Ss retained a photographiclike record of everyday experience. These experiments demonstrated that remembering was often reconstructive rather than literal, and emphasized the apparent advantages subjects gained from verbalizing their perceptions. However, perhaps because of the theoretical tenor of the