To test the hypothesis that meaning of a sentence is represented in an abstract format rather than one mediated by words or images, 96 spoken sentences were immediately followed by a word or drawing probe. It was concluded that sentence or probe meaning is represented in an abstract conceptual format. (CHK)

Research supported in part by U.S. Public Health Service, National Institute of Mental Health. (DD)

Reports on an experiment in which performance on abstract and concrete sentences was compared in a sentence meaning classification task and in a free recall task. Results show that concrete sentences were classified significantly faster than abstract ones. (CLK)

Research supported by grants from the National Institute of Mental Health and the National Science Foundation. (DD)

Reports three experiments to investigate differences in the semantic classification of pictures and words. The data suggest that visual short-term memory and semantic memory operate in semantic-decision tasks though these sources of information differ in characteristics, potential for activation, and level of abstraction. (PMJ)

Experiments are reported in which semantically interrelating sentences were presented to subjects as discrete items, and inference tests were given to measure the degree to which the similar information had been stored in the same memory system. Results suggest that verbal information is sometimes encoded into an episodic system. (Author/RM)