This study focused on the psychological process involved in drawing inferences from pictures. Nineteen reference tests and two tests of picture interpretation behavior were administered to a random sample of 95 children aged 10-12: the Production of Inference Tests (PIT) and the Discovery of Similarities Test (DST). (JEG)

Consistent learning gains are associated with the use of pictures when experiments adhere to five ground rules: (1) prose passages are presented orally; (2) the subjects are children; (3) the passages are fictional narratives; (4) the pictures overlap the story content; and (5) learning is demonstrated by factual recall. (Author)