A propositional network system for representing the logical and semantic information contained in a text is described. The reliability of scoring information recalled from reading, using this representational system, is found to vary with the scoring goal. Determination of the amount of information recalled is found to be extremely reliable. A…

Field-independent and field-dependent college students studied a 1525-word article under a preferred or nonpreferred study condition (read only, underline, or note taking). Half of the subjects reviewed the material prior to an examination and half did not. Results indicated that field-independent subjects who used a nonpreferred study technique…

A total of 150 undergraduate students randomly assigned to five experimental groups studied ten paragraphs with questions interspersed at different locations in the text. Performance on incidental items was significantly lower (p < .05) in the question before (QB) than in the question after (QA), question before and after (QBA), and the…

The effect of variations in the organization of information and in contextual features upon comprehension of prose was tested using four tasks. Organization was varied to contrast hierarchical information structures and list information structures, and to test the effect of linking the structural components of the passage into a conceptual…

The effect of supplementary questions on learning from textual materials was investigated in a sample of 94 college juniors. Each subject was given a 1,500-word passage describing the concept of measurement. One treatment group was asked to identify characteristics of the concept; another was asked to identify examples from the text; a third…

A study investigated the relationship between high and low reading ability and the study techniques of reading, the usual method of note taking, and student-generated paragraph summaries on the six levels of cognitive learning from textual material as measured by Bloom's "Taxonomy." Subjects, 84 college students enrolled in an…

The general hypotheses derived from a series of six experiments in instructional theory were as follows: that the individually optimal reading sequence of juxtaposed, but mutally related, prose text depends on learning goal and pre-knowledge; that adult learners are able to approach this reading sequence through their own decisions; and that…

An analysis was performed of multiple-choice tests in terms of the frequency theory of recognition memory. High and low ability children listened to sentences under different instructional sets (imagery rating and sentence repetition) and were later tested with multiple-choice alternatives: (1) either identical or similar in meaning to the…

The effects of pictorial illustrations on memory for text were studied in 144 college students. Two experiments indicated that illustrations serve a supplementary function; adjunct pictures alone, without special processing instructions, do not help learners encode information that is not normally encoded in the first place. (SLD)

A recognition paradigm was employed to assess developmental changes in memory for within-sentence (premise) and between-sentence (inference) information from 16 brief prose stories. Eleventh graders retained significant amounts of both premise and inference information, while fifth graders showed substantial retention only for premise information.…

The amount and structure of prose learning derived from vocabulary definition and graphic post-organizer construction methods of independent study tasks is examined. Undergraduate subjects (n=144) read a 2000-word passage in a 20-minute reading period. Two subject groups performed text information tasks while a third acted as a control to measure…

In three experiments subjects (college and high school students) read passages which described psychological principles and answered either adjunct application or factual questions while reading. Questions were presented either before, after, or both before and after the parts of the passage that answered the questions. Subsequently subjects took…

B. J. F. Meyer's approach to prose analysis is utilized in this paper to examine differences in learning and memory of text by readers across the adult lifespan. The analysis system is described briefly and compared to other approaches. Several studies are then summarized that employ this hierarchical analysis system to study learner…

Research generally indicates that imagery facilitates children's learning on basic memory tasks, such as paired-associate learning. The role of imagery in prose recall is less well defined, however. The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of the construction of mental images on eight year old's ability to recall progressively…

There is substantial evidence that prose-relevant pictures contribute to increased recall of prose materials, particularly if the subjects are young children. The purpose of this study was to investigate the contribution of prose-relevant pictures to immediate and delayed recall of written prose including science content when the subjects were…