Baggett, P. (1975). Memory for explicit and implicit information in picture stories. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 14, 538-548.

The nature of the memory representation of two types of information in picture stories is examined: surface information, arising directly from pictures which occur in the stories, and conceptual information, easily inferable when integrating the pictures into a connected story, but arising potentially also from pictures not in the stories. Differences in accessibility to these representations are inferred from reaction time differences. Results indicate that the observer makes, while viewing, inferences necessary to form a coherent story, that he rejects improbable pictures, that for at least three days he can separate pictures whose meaning fits the story but which he has not seen from pictures he actually saw; and that he answers written questions about the story's meaning from a conceptual rather than a surface memory representation.