The effects of item versus categorical labelling on subsequent memory.

Abstract

Object categorization is a cognitive process influenced by the spatial distance between related objects. Previous work has shown that objects presented proximally (e.g. apple and orange) are more likely to be labelled at the category level (e.g. fruit), whereas objects presented distally are more likely to be labelled at the item level (e.g. apple and orange). Furthermore, the specificity of object labelling has been shown to influence subsequent memory. Here, we investigated the effect of spatial proximity (proximal vs. distal) on label production during encoding and whether the label produced (item-level or category-level) affected subsequent recognition memory. Our results showed that semantically related objects presented proximally were significantly more likely to receive category-level labels, whereas distally presented objects were more likely to receive item-level labels. These categorizations also affected subsequent memory, such that targets encoded with item-level labels showed significantly higher hit rates and lower false alarm rates to category lures, relative to category-level labels. However, item-level labels did not reduce false alarms to perceptually similar lures, suggesting that label specificity alone is insufficient for fine-grained perceptual discrimination. Together, these findings suggest that item-level labels serve as stronger, more specific retrieval cues that aid recognition and support rejection of categorically related lures but do not provide sufficient detail to discriminate between perceptually similar lures. Category-level labels, by contrast, promote more generalized representations that increase susceptibility to false recognition. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).