Two aspects of memory for prose were investigated. The amount of information remembered and the semantic interpretation assigned to ambiguous paragraphs. Task instructions and exposure duration of passages were varied. Recall and recognition measures indicated students remembered more with instructions requiring processing at a semantic level.…

Many theories of memory assume memory representations are abstract and exclude specific lexical information. Results of three experiments in this study suggest lexical information is present and persists in memory representations of meaning. A word-based theory of memory should be preferred over available theoretical alternatives. (CHK)

This study tested predictions from Clark and Haviland's formalization of what people do when integrating information. Subjects were presented with simple sentences issued from a set of complex ideas, and asked to reconstruct the complete ideas. Results support predictions based on a recoding strategy formalized by Clark and Haviland. (CHK)

In Study 1, 4-year-olds avoided 2 names for an object when exposed to a common or a proper noun in a puppet's presence or to a common noun in a puppet's absence, but not when exposed to a proper noun in a puppet's absence. In Study 2, 3-year-olds avoided 2 names for an object when the requester for the referent of a second label in a different…

This study examined neuropsychological deficits among children with bipolar disorder while attending to its comorbidity with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Seventy-three unmedicated children (ages 6-17 years) with Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed.; American Psychiatric Association, 1994) bipolar…

A central theoretical issue is that of the cognitive status of imagery. Detractors emphasize the merely-sensory aspects while proponents emphasize the also-symbolic aspects. Examined with reference to this issue are the theories of Piaget and Bruner, recent studies of concept learning and representation, and studies related to the Craik and…

It is now possible to carry forward the work in visual languaging and visual literacy to create a model for language and for cognition. The central hypothesis is that visual sequences are gradually learned, perceived, and "read" by people, but especially by little children, much as languaging is learned, perceived, and read; the…

SEVENTY-FIVE FEMALE PSYCHOLOGY STUDENTS PARTICIPATED IN A STUDY WHICH INVESTIGATED THE EFFECT OF GROUP PRESSURE ON THE RETENTION OF PREVIOUSLY LEARNED VERBAL MATERIAL IN A CONTROLLED LABORATORY SETTING. THE SUBJECTS WERE RANDOMLY ASSIGNED TO FIVE SITUATIONS, 15 TO A GROUP, AND WENT THROUGH 4 STEPS IN THE EXPERIMENT -- (1) ORIGINAL LEARNING, (2)…

A theory for representation of concepts in memory is proposed which emphasizes the association of salient exemplars with the concept. Previous theories dealing with the classification processes involved in acquiring new concepts have shown that clear category boundaries do not exist. It is proposed that present theory must account for the…

The effects of arousal on verbal learning and memory are presently controversial. Investigators using different definitions of arousal, different tasks, and different methods have (as one would expect) produced different findings in the literature: (a) Arousal during acquisition leads to poor immediate but better delayed recall; (b) Arousal during…

Recent theories of verbal memory have hypothesized that memory for a stimulus is not represented by a unitary memory trace, but rather by a coding on several attributes of the event. The present experiment tested the differential forgetting hypothesis in a unique way. Words were presented either visually (V) or auditorally (A) in a continuous…

In this third Occasional Paper in the Science series of The Science and Mathematics Education Information Analysis Center, Ausubel explains the nature and theoretical rationale of "organizers", abstract, general, and inclusive statements presented prior to new learning tasks to provide specific relevant anchoring ideas in the learner's…

THE EFFECTS OF INTERPOLATED ITEMS ON THE LEARNING AND RETENTION OF INDIVIDUAL STIMULUS-RESPONSE (S-R) UNITS IN PAIRED-ASSOCIATE LEARNING WERE INVESTIGATED. EXPERIMENTS WERE DESIGNED TO DETERMINE THE EFFECTS OF INTERFERENCE PRODUCED BY OTHER ITEMS WHICH OCCUR NATURALLY WITHIN THE CONTEXT OF A STANDARD PAIRED-ASSOCIATE TASK. IN ADDITION, SEVERAL…

A short-term recall task in which letters were spaced in different ways by distractor digits was used to separate aspects of primary and secondary memory processes and to permit examination of primary memory for position, order and item independently. Memory for order appeared derivative to memory for temporal position. (CHK)

An experiment was carried out to study the processes of linguistic memory. Subjects were asked to read aloud brief prose passages and repeat what they had read. The "deviations" from the original passages were analyzed to determine the time of the deviation, during decoding or recall. (Text is in Italian.) (CFM)