In the present study abstract or concrete target nouns had to be retrieved from semantic memory within 1 min. after the definitions of the nouns had been presented to subjects (Brown and McNeill's paradigm). Following the definition session 22 subjects were unexpectedly asked to recall the target nouns from episodic memory. Semantic memory as well as episodic memory retrieval was better for concrete than for abstract nouns. These results could not be explained in terms of a higher adequacy of definitions for the concrete words. The results seem to support those theories of memory which postulate a dual-code representation of information, especially a verbal code and an imagery code.
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