In two experiments subjects were required to determine whether a random, angular form, presented at any of a number of picture-plane orientations was a "standard" or "reflected" version. Average time required to make this determination increased linearly with the angular departure of the form from a previously learned orientation. (Author/BJG)

College undergraduates participated in a cost/benefit analysis and a speed/accuracy analysis of semantic priming in a lexical decision task. In both studies, half the cues were neutral and half were words from 30 semantic categories. Word targets were the category names, and nonword targets were derived from those names. The cue-word was valid 80%…

The usefulness of intact (topic outline format) and embedded (positioned within text) headings as processing aids to facilitate recall was examined, using a 2,500-word passage from introductory science textbooks. Prior studies were subject to criticisms which this study attempted to correct, specifically: (1) use of non-optimal dependent measures;…

The present study was designed to determine if subjects of different ages are equally distracted by meaningless perceptual and by semantic features of potentially interfering information. In contrast to a Stroop-like task, figures instead of words were used as possibly interfering information. First graders, fourth graders, and college students…

To determine whether gifted children are faster than average students on all behaviors sampled or only on academic subjects, 46 gifted and 30 average children were tested. The time rates for tapping, walking, reading, answering, and calculating were determined. All children were from grades 4 through 6; median IQ of the gifted was 138, and for the…

A study of the speech process was conducted. The process is described as one closely linked to the one involved in the problem of the serial order in behavior. It is pointed out that in the speech of young children the grammatical relations that are properties of elementary underlying sentences appear in the grammatical meanings. Six examples of…

Novices and experienced business executives were compared on speed at dictation and writing of business letters. Differences between the two groups were not as great as might have been expected. Composition itself appears to be the fundamental skill and limiting factor, while the method of composing is secondary. (SJL)

Good and poor readers' visual and auditory memory were tested. No group differences existed for single mode presentation in recognition frequency or latency. With multimodal presentation, good readers had faster latencies. Dual coding and self-terminating memory search hypotheses were supported. Implications for the reading process and reading…

Two experiments used the sentence-picture verification paradigm to study encoding and comparison processes with spatial information. Subjects decided whether a spatial description of a geometric figure matched a second figure. Three critical results demonstrated that task-specific variables could be the primary determinants of how subjects verify…

In a modification of the sentence-picture comprehension task (Chase & Clark, 1972), 70 university undergraduates verified sentence-picture pairs. The findings limit the generalizability of any linguistic comparison model; two different comprehension strategies were used consistently by different subjects, whose choices of strategy were predictable…

An experiment is described that involved presenting sentences to the subject for study and then testing single words for recognition (the subject had to decide whether the test word was in one of the study sentences). A large priming effect was obtained. (Author/RM)

A factor analysis was used to study the relationships among response time and accuracy scores for a verbal analogies test, as well as a number of experimental variables designed to measure a series of information processing stages of the analogies task. (CTM)

French sentences with a long ambiguous word just before a target phoneme led to faster reaction times than did sentences with a short unambigous word just before the target phoneme. (Author/SW)

This study examines the role of verbal labels in picture recognition by 5-year-olds and adults to find out if recognition accuracy and time of recognition choice is influenced by the use of labels. (GO)

Reports a study which investigated whether the thought processes of grade 12 economics students affected the level of economic reasoning used in resolving time-allocation dilemmas. Concludes that seniors trained in cost-benefit analysis used significantly higher economic reasoning when resolving high perceived familiarity time-allocation dilemmas.…