Research also suggests that verbal rehearsal differs between auditory and visual presentation.
The working memory model was revised to accommodate the finding that while verbal rehearsal takes place with auditory information, with visual information younger children preserve it in its visual or pictorial form . Only when they reach 7-8 years do they translate the visual information into an auditory code and then use verbal rehearsal which produces the word length effect . The revised working memory model is the basis for the first hypothesis. This predicts that verbal rehearsal develops earlier in the auditory modality than in the visual modality because visual information has to be translated into an auditory code . The second hypothesis does not predict any differences between the presentation modalities but suggests that verbal rehearsal only develops from seven years.