Sound symbolism is the notion that the relation between word sounds and word meaning is not arbitrary for all words, but rather there is a subset of words in the world's languages for which sounds and their symbols have some degree of correspondence. This research investigates sound symbolism as a possible means of gaining semantic knowledge of…

A traditional cued recall task and an item recognition priming paradigm were used to assess the locus of associative memory difficulties in learning-disabled children. Results for 24 learning-disabled and 24 nondisabled sixth graders are discussed within the explicit and implicit memory framework of P. Graf and D. L. Schacter (1985). (TJH)

Hint, pegword experience, and hint plus pegword experience conditions were evaluated against three other conditions: (1) a no strategy control condition; (2) an instructional treatment to maximize elaborative strategy use; and (3) an instructional treatment to minimize elaborative strategy use. Results clarify the nature of elaborative production…

In three experiments, fifth graders and college students watched a videotaped peer model executing two differentially effective associative-learning strategies. Observation of the model did not result in the consistent use of that strategy by fifth graders. College students did appear to benefit from the observational-learning opportunity.…

Studied prior knowledge as a mediator of effectiveness of the elaborative interrogation strategy for 50 male and 50 female undergraduates in a learning task. The elaborative interpretation group had significantly greater matching scores on an associative memory test for animal information than the control group only for familiar animals. (SLD)

This study of college undergraduates had two purposes: (1) to determine whether cognitive structure, as assessed by psychometric measures of concept interrelatedness, can be developed; and (2) to apply those measures to a learning situation that has produced a nonspecific transfer effect--the facilitative effect of concrete examples on learning…

Developmental differences in the acquisition of information about strategy efficiency gleaned from observation of a peer model were assessed among 60 second and 60 seventh graders and 60 undergraduate students. At each age level, 20 subjects were randomly assigned to each of 3 experimental conditions. Developmental differences were considerable.…