Pictorial and verbal encoding in preschool children.

Pictorial and verbal encoding in short-term memory of geometric figures and their names was studied in preschool children, using reaction time to a same-different judgment task. Children, like adults, were able to encode either pictures or names in either a pictorial or verbal fashion, as appropriate and with equal facility, although responses to second pictures were faster than responses to second words. Children's latencies were far longer than adults in a comparable task, and children were relatively much slower in switching encoding modalities when so required.