Are links with images more likely to be clicked on?

I am working on making the home page of a blog, and I want as many people as possible to click on the posts in the home page and read them.

I'm thinking of listing the post title, and then a quick summery, on the home page, with users having to click on the post title (or the read more link in the summery) to read the full post. It would look like this:

And this is the post summery.

My question is if I were to include a thumbnail on the left of the post title and the post summery, would more people be interested in (and read) the post?

Answer

There are a lot of different opinions on this question, so therefor I have decided to summarize everything that was said into this answer to make it easier to find the key points.

1. Thumbnails are smaller than normal images, and therefor they convey less meaning, so you need to chose your thumbnails very carefully in order for them to be useful. If irrelevant thumbnails are used: at their best they will make no difference to click through rates and at their worst they will confuse the user.


2. The larger a thumbnail is, the more user's will notice it. Use the largest thumbnails you can without sacrificing your design and your ux.


3. Icons are an alternative to thumbnails, and if you don't have access to relevant thumbnails, you should consider using icons.


4. However, if the thumbnails (or icons, if your using them instead) are relevant, they can help the user scan through your content and decide if they want to read it. They can also help click through rates.


5. Thumbnails (or icons) are not an alternative for good content. In order for your thumbnails to help you, you also need good titles and summaries.


6. If there is both an image and a headline/link present, users will often prefer to click the image instead of the text. Make sure you link your images.

If anyone has anything else to add (a study, perhaps), please post it here as an answer to this question and I will add it here to this answer. Thanks to everybody who has contributed an answer already: you have really helped me out :)