In a study by Kapur et al. (1994), participants completed either a perceptual task (looking for the letter "a" in words) or a semantic task (categorizing nouns as living or non-living). Recall was much better for the semantic task than for the perceptual task. PET scans showed much more activation in the left inferior prefrontal cortex during the semantic task.

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In memory research, performing a semantic task (such as categorizing a noun as living or non-living) results in significantly better subsequent recall of the information than performing a perceptual task (such as searching for a specific letter in a word).

Recall of Semantic vs. Perceptual Tasks

Spielman, R. M., Jenkins, W. J., & Lovett, M. D. (2020, April 22). Psychology (2nd ed.). OpenStax. https://openstax.org/books/psychology-2e/pages/1-introduction

OpenStax Psychology (2nd ed.) Textbook

Brain scans, such as positron emission tomography (PET), reveal that semantic tasks (which process meaning) produce much more activation in the left inferior prefrontal cortex than perceptual tasks (which process visual features).

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