Observers often remember a scene as containing information that was not presented but that would have likely been located just beyond the observed boundaries of the scene. This effect is called "boundary extension" (BE; e.g., Intraub & Richardson, 1989). Previous studies have observed BE in memory for visual and haptic stimuli, and…

People's memories must be able to represent experiences with multiple types of origins--including the real world and our own imaginations, but also printed texts (prose-based media), movies, and television (screen-based media). This study was intended to identify cues that distinguish prose- and screen-based media memories from each other, as well…

Although research has shown that older adults are negatively affected by aging stereotypes, relatively few studies have attempted to identify those older adults who may be especially susceptible to these effects. The current research takes steps toward identifying older adults most susceptible to the effects of stereotype threat and investigates…

Recent theories have posited that the hippocampus and thalamus serve distinct, yet related, roles in episodic memory. Whereas the hippocampus has been implicated in long-term memory encoding and storage, the thalamus, as a whole, has been implicated in the selection of items for subsequent encoding and the use of retrieval strategies. However,…

This study examined the ability of young children to correct comprehension errors, considered to be an aspect of comprehension monitoring. Kindergartners and second graders (N=32) heard a story about an unfamiliar situation, then answered questions which either assessed information contained within a single sentence, required the correct…

Differences in discourse type were expected to result in differences in processing text. The more organized discourse types of comparison, problem/solution, and causation were predicted to yield superior recall of information than a collection of descriptions about a topic. Results from two studies supported this prediction. (Author/BW)

Retrieval and response criterion explanations of the effects of text organization on memory were tested in four experiments. More target information was freely recalled when it was high than when low in content structure. Retrieval cues reduced recall differences between information high and low in the structure. (Author/RD)

This experiment investigated the assumption that children's learning and retention of prose material can be differentially affected by varying discrepancy from expectation (as established by an advance organizer). It was hypothesized that a passage which differed significantly from expectation would produce heightened arousal, which should in turn…

Examined effects of enforced organizational strategies on the memory of older adults for textual material. Young and old adults sorted scrambled sentences of a prose passage into the correct order. When older adults were required to make an in-depth analysis to sort material, their incidental memory for textual information was approximately equal…

Eighth-grade students were given short prose passages that described the distinguishing attributes of fictitious towns. Illustrations were devised to represent the attributes, either separately, thematically, or thematically in conjunction with the mnemonic keyword method. Keyword illustrations proved to be highly effective facilitators of…

This study examines the utility of an elaboration hypothesis as a means of predicting the recall of major ideas from text through the manipulation of paragraphs and via the use of inserted questions requiring different levels of elaboration. (PN)

A study examined the effects of within domain processing on the recall of idea units as well as the potential reversals in performance resulting from the passing of time. Subjects for the experiment were 89 undergraduate students randomly assigned to six conditions related to target words in a reading passage: counting e's, determining the…

This study sought to determine if age-related increases in memory for prose are, in part, due to deliberate mnemonic strategies and if older children use the high order relations in prose more efficiently than younger children. (HOD)

Two studies investigated whether variations in the importance of inferences and the salience of premises within a text would affect the probability that the inference would be made. Six stories of about 500 words were used, with eight variations of each story. The target inference, and its plausibility, was constant across all versions. Inference…

"Levels of processing" is an explanatory framework postulating that differences in memory processing quality or effort affect the duration of the memory trace. Using recall (immediate, one week, or two week) for connected discourse processed under three semantic and three orthographic interference conditions, as well as a noninterference…