Role of Visual Richness in Picture Recognition Memory

25 fourth graders, 21 eighth graders, and 21 college students were shown slides of objects presented as (a) color photographs, (b) black-and-white photographs, (c) simple outline drawings, or (d) printed words. After an 8-wk. delay, students were asked to discriminate the study slides from similar distractor slides. No significant differences were found among the types of pictures. Recognition of black-and-white photographs was superior to words.