Uses the judicial model of reasoning employed by the Supreme Court as an exemplar in teaching critical skills in the basic argumentation and debate course. Describes the model and course highlights. (PD)

Two studies involving 16 and 20 mildly mentally retarded young adults supported a two-stage model for the relatively simple discrimination tasks employed, with initial sensory registration preceding and independent from subsequent central processing. (CL)

Sex differences in speed of solving mental rotation problems were replicated but college men and women were alike in frequency of use of algorithms to solve problems. The most frequent algorithm involved encoding stimuli in working memory, mental rotation of one to orientation of the other, comparison, and response. (Author/RD)

A stages-of-learning model was used to examine effects of picture-word manipulation on storage and retrieval differences between disabled and nondisabled grade 2 and 6 children. Results showed that disabled students are poorer at memory tasks and in developing the ability to reliably retrieve information than nondisabled children. (Author/RH)

The usages of transaction and interaction are differentiated as reflections of differing paradigms, the transactional theory of reading is disassociated from information processing and interactive processing, and the implications for research of various concepts basic to the total transactional theory of reading are discussed. (HOD)

Nine- and ten-year old good and poor readers read a target sentence, either a word or a pseudohomophone, preceded by incongruous, congruous, or no-sentence context for the pseudohomophones. Results were consistent with the interactive-compensatory model of reading proposed by Stanovich. (FL)

To break the bottleneck inherent in today's linear computer architectures, parallel schemes (which allow computers to perform multiple tasks at one time) are being devised. Several of these schemes are described. Dataflow devices, parallel number-crunchers, programing languages, and a device based on a neurological model are among the areas…

Examines the role inner speech (as defined by Vygotsky and Sokolov) plays in the thought-word process in order to understand how and why communication skills are interrelated. Presents three intrapersonal/extrapersonal speech models and outlines four procedural rules necessary for effective communication. (PD)

Discusses focusing, the manner in which speakers center attention on a particular element of discourse, and describes a process model of focusing that specifies what syntactic, semantic, and world knowledge constraints are needed for a hearer to track a speaker's focus in a discourse. (FL)

Three experiments involving balance scale problems were used to characterize and explain developmental differences in three domains of children's thinking: existing knowledge about the problems, ability to acquire new information about them, and process-level differences underlying developmental changes in the first two areas. (BW)

Advances in cognitive research increase the need for assessment that can address the processes and the strategies by which persons solve problems. Several psychometric models have been introduced to handle claims cast in information-processing terms, explicitly modeling performance in terms of theory-based predictions of performance. Cognitively…

This paper describes a theoretical framework for the investigation of some specific types of visual learning difficulties commonly experienced by biology undergraduates. The framework was developed based on the findings of three simple qualitative pilot studies. A variety of neurological, cognitive and cultural mechanisms can influence what humans…

Adaptive assistance in distributed learning environments (DLEs) provides new and exciting possibilities through the full exploitation of data captured from the interaction of the different actors with information processing, collaboration, and self-management tools. This paper presents a process to build adaptive assistance in a DLE. A DLE is rich…