Discusses research which shows that bilinguals in a word recognition task are able to process the words of a language in a language-specific manner without any influence of their knowledge of the surface or conceptual represenations of words in the other language. (EKN)

Three experiments were conducted to study the inferencing processes involved in anaphoric reference. Results show that an anaphora activates both its referent and concepts when in the same proposition as the referent, and that all three, when in the same proposition, are connected in the long-term representation of a text. (PJM)

Considers two hypotheses about the association between equivalent words in a bilingual's two languages: (1) word association, which hypothesizes a direct association between words in the two languages and (2) concept mediation, which proposes the only connection between the two languages is via an underlying conceptual system. Reports on…

The "property-set model" is proposed for concept learning and subsequent recognition and classification of old and new exemplars. In an experimental evaluation of alternative models, the property-set model was the best predictor of both recognition and classification performance. (Author/RM)

Presents a computer simulation testing semantic networks and spreading activation models of human memory. Describes how a sentence is encoded by building a working memory structure from its words and from semantic memory concepts related to its meaning. Retrieval processes use cue words or sentences to locate working memory structures. (Author/MES)

The question of what constitutes a minimal appropriate context for understanding a metaphor is examined through the relative effectiveness of three types of contextual priming for metaphor comprehension. All three produced immediate and automatic metaphor comprehension. The use of context to disambiguate both literal and nonliteral speech messages…

Describes a question-answering procedure for probing the reader's internal representation of prose. Examines two dimensions of a reader's conceptual organization of plot: hierarchical level and relational density of propositions. (PMJ)

Reports three experiments to test age-related difFerences in sentence memory arising from sources other than noncognitive factors. Age-related differences are discussed in terms of deficiencies at encoding and retrieval. (PMJ)