Fraisse, P. (1970). La verbalisation d'un dessin facilite-t-elle son évocation par l'enfant? Année Psychologique, 70, 109-122.

This study compaired short-term memory for series of drawing representing an object or two objects having different relations between each other to short-term memory for series of names or sentences describing these same drawings. Subjects were eight-year old children. After one presentation more drawing (in a free recall task) were remembered than verbal stimuli. This effect, however, decreased when the number of presentations increased. In addition, verbalisation of the content of the drawings when these were presented facilitated retention only when the drawing and thus its verbal description were complex. The verbal response being the same for both the drawings and verbal stimuli, these findings indicate that the nature of the stimulus plays a greater role in retention than the response. This is interpreted on the basis of the greater short-term associative power that concrete stimuli have over verbal stimuli.