The results of two matching-to-sample experiments using color cues in Consonant Vowel Consonant (CVC) stimulus words with kindergarten through third grade subjects are included in this document. Color cues influenced subjects to match according to first letters. When the first letter of each stimulus word was underlined in red, kindergarten and…

This study investigated the research construct of encoding specificity using an applied research orientation. Encoding specificity considers the effects on memory of the interactive relationship among encoding, the stored memory trace, and external retrieval cues. Subjects were 273 undergraduate students enrolled in the College of Engineering at…

Involving children 7 and 10 years of age, two experiments aimed to clarify the basis of children's confusion about actions they performed and actions they imagined performing. In experiment 1, subjects were assigned to one of three conditions, each involving two different types of tracing exercises. Children traced simple or complex pictures by…

An experiment tested the hypothesis that the outcome of a vocal nonverbal persuasion attempt can be affected by the participants' skills in nonverbal communication. Subjects' vocal sending or decoding abilities were pretested. Senders and decoders (N=54) were agents and recipients of social influence, respectively, in a field experiment in which…

Sixty kindergarten, 60 second-grade, and 60 fourth-grade students performed several memory tasks under one of six conditions. The conditions differed as to the method of presentation of information. The study was focused on developmental changes in children's use of verbal, nonverbal, and spatial-positional cues for memory. The results, in…

Based on psychological approaches that evoke mental representations through verbal and visual cues, this paper investigates the different kinds of mental representations projected by 8 to 11 year old children of identified arithmetical achievement when responding to verbal and visual stimuli associated with fractions. It examines how the visual…

For 15 years an ongoing research project at the University of Pittsburgh has focused on the effects of variations in visual complexity and color on the storage and retrieval of visual information by learners. Research has shown that visual materials facilitate instruction, but has not fully delineated the interactions of visual complexity and…

In order to compare the instructional effectiveness of realistic and non-realistic color cueing on visualized instruction, an instructional unit on the human heart, using slides and an audiotape, was presented to 244 college students. Four treatment groups received the same oral presentation, with the addition of different types of visual…

This study investigated the interaction of variations in color realism on pictorial recall memory in order to better understand the effects of variations in color realism, and to draw comparisons between visual recall memory and visual recognition memory in terms of color information processing. Stimulus materials used were three sets of slides,…

Results of two studies investigating children's abilities to use different kinds of cues to infer another's affective state are reported in this paper. In the first study, 48 children (3, 4, and 6 to 7 years of age) were given three different kinds of tasks (interpersonal task, facial recognition task, and vocal recognition task). A cross-age…

Twenty male and 20 female first graders were trained in a paired-associates (PA) learning task to test the hypothesis that instructions to generate interactive mental images of word referents and interactive imagery training administered prior to PA learning facilitate cued recall. Subjects were randomly assigned to one of the following five…

Several current television series for preschool children convey stories, not through meaningful dialogue, but through visual information and intonational cues embedded within nonsensical dialogue. This study examined young children's ability to construct meaning from such materials. Participating were 135 preschoolers, 3 to 5 years old. Subjects…

The effects of visual grouping strategies involving animated and static graphic presentations on learning were studied. Also studied was the ability of students to learn a scientific rule presented incidentally in an animated sequence in the hope of replicating results from previous research. A total of 39 fourth graders participated in an…

A total of 90 fifth- and sixth-grade students studied a map of the fictitious island while twice listening to a 1,100-word prose passage describing it. The description included 16 nouns that had been chosen as map features. Map features were identified by labels and icons. Afterwards, students were given a cued recall test with 16 feature-related…

A study was made to determine whether instructional cues presented to the learner as variations of audiovisual and textual information including a cue summation condition (combined textual, pictorial, and auditory cues) can facilitate the achievement of precise instructional objectives. Some 112 education students enrolled in a course on mental…