Subjects compared the magnitudes of pairs of concepts from the semantic orderings of time, quality and temperature. Results showed that the semantic representations of ordered terms contain subjective magnitude information. (Author/RM)

In a study using preschool and elementary school children, the children's judgments of whether brief stories described valid instances of a concept shifted in a manner consistent with the authors' hypothesis that meanings typically develop from representations in which characteristic features predominate to those in which defining features become…

In a comparative study of American English speakers and British English speakers, it was examined whether segmental effects can be used in speech production as cues to syntactic structure. American speakers could use the segmental cues in syntax perception, while British speakers could not. Speakers of British English who were long-term residents…

Results of a study indicated that adults reading for retention spent more time focusing on syntactic structure, while those reading for immediate comprehension focused more of their time on semantic content. However, the children (fifth graders) used reading strategies that involved mixtures of both of the adult components. (SL)

Examines two sets of variables that influence age-related patterns of text recall--the effects of verbal ability level and text structure variables on text recall of younger, middle-aged, and older adults. Results indicate that age differences in the discovery and utilization of the organizational structure of texts were found to be mediated by…

Analyzes ellipsis, pronominalization, emphatic stress, the indefinite article, the definite article, and initialization as used by child and adult speakers of English, Hungarian, and Italian. Conclusions: marked differences between the languages; early learning of the functions of the devices; some changes with age. (Author/EJS)