This study investigates the effects of Processing Instruction (PI) on the acquisition of grammatical gender and gender-marked pronouns in German. PI was compared to Traditional Instruction, i.e. a traditional, vocabulary-oriented approach using color cues (TI) and a Categorization and Memorization task (CM). The results of an immediate posttest…

The pedagogical approach for both didactic and laboratory teaching of anatomy has changed in the last 25 years and continues to evolve; however, assessment of student anatomical knowledge has not changed despite the awareness of Bloom's taxonomy. For economic reasons most schools rely on multiple choice questions (MCQ) that test knowledge mastered…

The processing of morphological information during Chinese word memorization was investigated in the present study. Participants were asked to study words presented to them on a computer screen in the studying phase and then judge whether presented words were old or new in the test phase. In addition to parent words (i.e. the words studied in the…

A frequent procedure used to study how individuals monitor their own learning is to collect judgments of learning (JOLs) during acquisition, considered to be important, in part, because such judgments are assumed to guide how individuals allocate their future learning resources. In such research, however, a tacit assumption is frequently made:…

Retrieval demand, as implemented through test format and retrieval instructions, was varied across two misinformation experiments. Our goal was to examine whether increasing retrieval demand would improve the relationship between confidence and memory performance, and thereby reduce misinformation susceptibility. We hypothesized that improving the…

According to the Task Support Hypothesis (TSH; Bowler et al. in Neuropsychologia 35:65-70, 1997) individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) perform more similarly to their typically developing peers on learning and memory tasks when provided with external support at retrieval. We administered the California Verbal Learning Test-Children's…

Retrieving memories can impair recall of other related traces. Items affected by this retrieval-induced forgetting (RIF) are often less accessible when tested with independent probes, a characteristic known as cue independence. Cue independence has been interpreted as evidence for inhibitory mechanisms that suppress competing items during…

The present research examined the influence of prior knowledge on children's free recall, cued recall, recognition memory, and source memory judgments for a series of similar real-life events. Forty children (5-12 years old) attended 4 thematic birthday parties and were later interviewed about the events that transpired during the parties using…

Memory plasticity, or the ability to improve one's memory performance through instruction and training, is known to decline during adulthood. However, direct comparisons among middle childhood, adulthood, and old age are lacking. The authors examined memory plasticity in an age-comparative multisession training study. One hundred and eight…

Types of comparisons for evaluation of mnemonics were identified based on equating exposure to the to-be-learned associations or on total study time. Experiments on the cueword method illustrated how highly analytical experiments on mnemonics might be conducted and how choice of comparisons in research could affect mnemonic evaluation. (Author/DWH)

Ratcliff's theory of memory retrieval which posits parallel processing and Sternberg's serial processing explanation of memory scanning are reviewed and contrasted. Discrepancy between the two theories may arise because they focus on different aspects of the data. If scanning without comparisons takes place, the two views may be reconciled.…

Four experiments with 132 seventh graders, 162 eighth graders, 75 fourth graders, and 52 third graders compared the mnemonic keyword method with various other vocabulary learning strategies. Mnemonic keyword students outperformed sentence-context and free-study counterparts and generally outperformed others on tests of vocabulary usage. (SLD)

Two computer assisted instruction programs tested the effects of plain and enhanced screen designs with or without information about those designs and task-type on time and learning. Subjects were 140 fourth grade students in Lincoln, Nebraska who had extensive prior experience with computers. The enhanced versions used headings, directive cues,…