diff --git a/Doc/library/tempfile.rst b/Doc/library/tempfile.rst
index c143b88e2ad..b68a412383b 100644
--- a/Doc/library/tempfile.rst
+++ b/Doc/library/tempfile.rst
@@ -83,9 +83,11 @@ The module defines the following user-callable items:
    causes the file to roll over to an on-disk file regardless of its size.
 
    The returned object is a file-like object whose :attr:`_file` attribute
-   is either a :class:`StringIO` object or a true file object, depending on
-   whether :func:`rollover` has been called. This file-like object can be
-   used in a :keyword:`with` statement, just like a normal file.
+   is either a :class:`BytesIO` or :class:`StringIO` object (depending on
+   whether specifies binary or text *mode* was specified) or a true file
+   object, depending on whether :func:`rollover` has been called.  This
+   file-like object can be used in a :keyword:`with` statement, just like
+   a normal file.
 
 
 .. function:: TemporaryDirectory(suffix='', prefix='tmp', dir=None)
diff --git a/Lib/tempfile.py b/Lib/tempfile.py
index b8fc18c3bf7..86300b6a242 100644
--- a/Lib/tempfile.py
+++ b/Lib/tempfile.py
@@ -479,8 +479,8 @@ else:
             raise
 
 class SpooledTemporaryFile:
-    """Temporary file wrapper, specialized to switch from
-    StringIO to a real file when it exceeds a certain size or
+    """Temporary file wrapper, specialized to switch from BytesIO
+    or StringIO to a real file when it exceeds a certain size or
     when a fileno is needed.
     """
     _rolled = False