The influence of verbal descriptions versus orientation codes on kindergartners' memory for the orientation of pictures.

Kindergarten children who viewed a series of 10 line drawings of objects subsequently showed little ability to distinguish between these pictures and their left-right mirror images. However, the children's memory for orientation improved substantially when children were induced to (a) give detailed verbal descriptions of the pictures, or (b) specify a difference between characteristics on the child's side versus the experimenter's side of each picture, or (c) both. The 3 induced strategies were equally effective. On a posttest given approximately a week later, the children did not maintain use of any of these effective strategies.