Facilitation of children's prose recall by the presence of pictures

Abstract

Nine-year-old children were required to read descriptive passages presented with or without line drawings of the subjects of those passages. Immediate and delayed free recall performance was higher following presentation with pictures than without. Reading times and errors for the passages were not affected by the presence of pictures. Inclusion of color and additional detail within the pictures had no effect on any of the measures analyzed. The presence of pictures increased the recall of both pictorial and nonpictorial features from the passages. It was concluded that pictures play a significant role in the enhancement of children's retention of prose passages. © 1979 Psychonomic Society, Inc.