This paper covers an experiment designed to investigate the relationship between the didactical setting and learning effects with animations. We investigated whether the cognitive load imposed by animations could be reduced when the students could control the flow of the animation. We did not find an effect due to the fact that the students did…

Although the use of hypertext systems for learning complex knowledge has been attracting recent attention, there have been few discussions in the hypertext literature on issues related to the cognitive prerequisites for learning conceptually demanding material. A study was conducted to investigate a theory-based hypertext learning environment that…

Cognitive-based approaches to social and personality psychology have studied the structure of trait constructs in memory. The bipolar view of traits suggests that the activation of a trait construct such as "hostile" should be associated with the simultaneous activation of its semantic opposite "kind." The unipolar view, in…

Investigated were the role of mental imagery in children's logical reasoning and individual differences in children's use of imagery while reasoning. Fifth grade students assessed as being high imagers (HIS) and low imagers (LIS) completed conditional syllogisms of various kinds and were asked, after each of their responses, whether an image had…

The task consisted of categorizing a set of slides depicting concepts of freedom, nonfreedom, justice, and nonjustice. The results of the analysis indicated that abstract thinkers performed significantly better than did concrete thinkers and that performance increased as a function of grade level. (Author/BJG)

When one learns complex material, the important thing appears to be the ability to understand the material. Once understanding occurs, learning and remembering follow automatically. The conventional psychological literature says little about the processes involved in the learning of complex material--material that takes weeks, months, and even…

Explores 96 preschool children's utilization of complementary and taxonomic relations under varying task demands. Results indicated that, as task demands increased, (1) complementary intrusions produced systematic error in the taxonomic condition and (2) performance decreased in both conditions. Complementary pairs were maintained at progressively…

Four- and five-year-old children were asked to compare the burning times of pairs of partially synchronous lights differing in intensity, bulb size, or both. (Author/MP)

First year medical students answered parallel multiple-choice questions at different taxonomic levels as part of their diagnostic examinations. The results show that when content is held constant, students perform as well on interpretation and problem-solving questions as on recall questions. (Author/BW)

A review of research and theory on cognitive processes and their relationship to instructional technique since the early 1970s looks at the contributions of schema theory and artificial intelligence and their instructional implications, including cognitive load theory, worked examples for learning problem solving, and physical vs. mental…

This response to Brainerd and Reyna's paper (in this issue) argues that the common resources hypothesis can be applied to a wider range of phenomena than can the output-interference hypothesis. Presents results of a dual-task experiment under bidirectional deficits. Concludes that dual-task studies do not provide critical tests of the resources…

The relationship between the verbal ability of 50 fifth graders and the adaptive nature of questions they asked while trying to find vocabulary synonyms was studied. Those with high verbal ability asked more necessary questions and, when items were difficult, asked more unnecessary questions, probably to increase confidence. (SLD)

This study with 56 students (mean age 15 years) with mental retardation and 53 nonretarded students (matched for mental age) found that students with mental retardation were more likely to rely on all kinds of external cues (task-relevant, incidental, or misleading) in problem solving, especially when the preceding task had been difficult.…