Empirical research is reviewed in the area of cognitive psychology pertaining to models of human memory. Research evidence and theoretical considerations are combined to develop guidelines for future theory development related to the human memory. The following theoretical constructs and variables are discussed: (1) storage versus process…

The purpose of this study was threefold: to determine whether adding a mnemonic to systematically designed instruction would improve verbal retention, to establish whether retention is better for concrete or abstract information, and to determine whether mental imagery or verbal elaboration is more effective for learning concrete or abstract…

The four papers in this collection discuss language perception and comprehension and report on experiments in those areas. The first paper, "The Influence of Non-Linguistic Knowledge on Perceiving and Verifying Sentences," discusses the reliance of language perception and comprehension on the interaction of linguistic and world…

The effect of three levels of short-term memory (STM) and four learning modes (control, chunking organizational strategy, programmed instruction, and adjunct questions) on prose learning and recall was studied. The participants in this study were educational psychology students at Towson State College in Maryland. Significant STM and learning mode…

This paper reports on a study concerned with rapid mental operations of the central processor as it performs tasks such as the comparison of rotated figures, mental arithmetic, sentence verification, and memory scanning. The central processor is the site of most of the symbol manipulation that takes place in the human information processing…

This study explored the developmental changes in children's effective utilization of verbal versus pictorial stimuli in forming connections between stimulus and response elements in a paired-associate task. A total of 112 children (56 males and 56 females), half of them 4-year-olds and half 8-year-olds, were tested under eight conditions involving…

The role of inference in children's comprehension and memory is the subject of this research report. An underlying proposition is that in order for a child to effectively understand and remember linguistic or nonlinguistic information, he must actively embellish the given stimulus material with his own implicit knowledge. In the experiment…

Two experiments were conducted, the purpose of which was to investigate the direct effects of questioning. In experiment one, 240 sophomores, juniors, and seniors from a small town high school read one of two versions of a 550-word passage describing the social behavior of the army ant. The subjects then took either a verbatim or paraphrase quiz,…

Research investigated three topics. These were: 1) the effect of paragraph organization on free recall of sentences and on the selection of clustering strategies; 2) how persons differing in subjective organization differ on recall and strategy selection; and 3) the relation between subjective organization and other cognitive abilities. Three…

Paired-associate (PA) learning of children was investigated as a function of age, stimulus-type, and mode of elaboration. Sixty nursery school children (average age 53 months) and 60 first graders (average age 84 months) were selected as subjects. Each child studied nine pairs of objects, photographs, or drawings for two trials of PA learning by…

The purposes of this study were to replicate the effects of question placement, either before or after, on the acquisition of critical and incidental material with grade school subjects and to determine the effects of paragraph length on learning with children. Two variables, question placement (BA) and pacing (PL), were combined in a 2 x 4…

A series of pilot and regular experiments were conducted to investigate memory checking processes. The first set of experiments developed a set of six different tests for the measurement of memory checking. Correlational studies of these tests demonstrated that they could be used reliably and that the different tests are measuring the same basic…

The word-identification approach has long been the basis for teaching reading in both native and second languages. Recent work has a new approach, particularly that of Frank Smith, who developed a feature analysis model of reading. As we can identify letters in different configurations or before all the strokes are completed, so can we identify…

This paper briefly reviews how subjects enhance performance by favoring some stimuli over others. The author calls the mechanism by which this is achieved "expectancy", a generic term including preparatory set, behavioral hypotheses, orienting reflex, and anticipatory goal responses. Temporal and event expectancy are contrasted. Verbal prediction…

In experiments where hypnotized subjects learned one word list while happy or sad, retention proved to be surprisingly independent of the congruence of learning and testing moods. Learning mood provided a helpful retrieval cue and differentiating context only where subjects learned two word lists, one while happy, one while sad. (EJS)