A study was conducted to investigate the effects of symbolic format of test material on short- and long-term recognition. Subjects, 104 undergraduate students, viewed slides of either a black-and-white photograph, a one-sentence verbal description of the photo, a black-and-white drawing based on the verbal description, or a black-and-white line drawing based on the verbal description with embellishments borrowed from the original photograph. In the study phase of the investigation, subjects were asked to pay attention to the slides, which were presented one every 5 seconds, and informed that a memory test was to be given after the viewing but that the test did not require them to remember the order in which the pictures were presented. During the test phase, subjects were presented with 57 slides. The slides were presented in the same room and manner as the earlier slides except that the test slides were presented at a rate of one every 8 seconds. Two days later the subjects were given a second recognition test. The study indicated that (1) the most important factor affecting retention is the type of feature encoded, not how many per se; pictures directly assess semantic information but additional details of color or realism of photos versus drawings are not important for recognition; and (2) retention might partly be a function of characteristics of the test cues. That they do not greatly influence performance is indicated by the fact that there were no significant differences between the study-picture/test-picture and study-picture/test-word conditions. (HOD)