Conceptual representation of pictures and words: Reply to Clark.

Abstract

Clark (1987) offers a dual coding alternative (Paivio, 1971, 1986) to the conceptual hypothesis that Potter, Kroll, Yachzel, Carpenter, and Sherman (1986) proposed to explain the ease with which people can read and understand rebus sentences in which a picture replaces a noun. We present theoretical and empirical reasons for positing a conceptual representation that is distinct from the representation of an object's name and from a mental image of it. The hierarchical conceptual model has greater explanatory and predictive power and is more parsimonious overall than Clark's alternative.