Presentation and criticism of pertinent work, plus the authors' own model. (Text is in French.) (DB)

In attempting to understand and describe the means by which human beings actually produce and interpret the message forms appropriate to a given domain of verbal behavior, it becomes apparent that the cognitive processes involved can reasonably be characterized as information processing phenomena. Throughout the production of a message form, an…

Examined how information-processing load affects the writing process by having 40 undergraduates write a short essay up to a supplied ending sentence with increasing content constraints. Results found that a high information-processing load led to lower-rated story coherence, but not to lower- rated quality. (36 references) (MDM)

Two contrasting views of the form and structure of knowledge are discussed -- an audiovisual model vs a computer tape library. The importance of two distinct psychological systems to represent language and knowledge of the world is stressed. (AM)

Research supported by a grant from the Office of Naval Research. (DD)

One of man's most distinctive characteristics is the manner in which he stores and communicates information. Language has always been an important part of this process, but recently machines have begun to share the spotlight. This book presents a look at the role of language in the process of communication and man's relation, present and future,…

Most advanced second language (L2) learners find continued vocabulary growth to be one of the most difficult areas in second language learning, and vocabulary acquisition has not received little attention by researchers. As a result, no unified theory of L2 vocabulary acquisition exists, although the literature contains ample advice on how to…

Mental activities and information learned in one context are not necessarily available for use in another. They often have to be learned anew in the second context, although perhaps with less time and effort. The fact is, however, that relatively little is known about how the activities of the mind affect one another. The study of bilingualism,…

This paper describes the notation and underlying organization of an augmented, recursive-transition network grammar and illustrates how such a grammar is a natural medium for expressing and explaining a wide variety of facts about the psychological processes of sentence comprehension. A general discussion of transformational grammar and…

While agreeing with psycholinguistic and neurolinguistic theories that suggest that innate language-related cognitive structures are the basis of language development, the author seeks to establish what it is that is innate and what is meant by innateness in the first place. The author considers the claims of psychological relevance made on behalf…

Research into the psychology of perception can uncover important discoveries for more efficient learning. There must be increased understanding of the processing of input and the pre-processing of output for improved language instruction. Educators must at the present time be extremely wary of basing what they do in the foreign-language classroom…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 20 titles deal with a variety of topics, including the following: semantic constructivity in children's comprehension; text-based inferences generated by children in reading written discourse; a review of reading comprehension…