Previous evidence suggests that when speakers produce sentences from memory or as picture descriptions, their choices of sentence structure are influenced by how easy it is to retrieve sentence material (accessibility). Three experiments assessed whether this pattern holds in naturalistic, interactive dialogue. Pairs of speakers took turns asking…

Two experiments examined subjects' ability to recognize or to recall sensible, interrelated sentences, with or without added bizarre sentences, either immediately or after two weeks. Results suggested that processing bizarre information can lead to more accurate recognition and recall of the sensible context. (Author/MH)

This study explored the viability of several theories in describing adjective memory. For the study, college students were told either to form images or to learn sentences. A noun-prompted sentence recall task exposed their memory for adjectives modifying either subject nouns. Results revealed that subject modifiers were better remembered than…

Two experiments with 64 college students are reported that examined the time course of retrieval in a sentence matching procedure. Results demonstrate that modifications are required for models that provide only a unitary value for the amount of match between a test probe and information in memory. (TJH)

Two experiments examined the roles of semantic and surface information in reading and recognizing sentences. Results indicate that reading and recognition are interactive processes, involving conceptually driven and data driven operations; the interaction may be either automatic or controlled. Semantic and surface information are conceptualized as…

Four experiments are reported which examine the role of phrase structure, memory load, concreteness of materials and other variables in the recall of meaningful English sentences. Several major findings are reported. Concreteness of the stimulus materials consistently is an aid to recall; although this is predicted from an imagery interpretation…

Functional Sentence Perspective (FSP) is a theory that predicts how units of information should be distributed in a sentence and how sentences should be related in a discourse. A binary topic-comment structure is assigned to each FSP sentence. For most English sentences, the topic is associated with the subject or the left-most noun phrase, and…

Describes an experiment that explored the relationships between text structure, prior knowledge, and reader's purpose on the processing of text and memory for text information. Results demonstrated that the strategies used to read text are flexible. (HOD)

The ability to monitor learning and memory of sentences was investigated in a group of 72 undergraduate students. Some sentences included within-sentence elaborations clarifying subject-verb-object relations and some did not. Results provide insights into subjects' recall and ability to monitor item difficulty and into effects of testing. (TJH)

This study examines recall of narrative prose for evidence of underlying structures such as the grammar used in the story's sentence structure. Subjects listened to repeated presentations of a tape recording of two pages from a history book, with verbals collected after each presentation. The subjects used in this experiment were 13 undergraduate…

Two passages were written, one on the topic of graphs and one on the topic of sonnets. Sixteen versions of each passage were constructed. Each version contained identical content but different textual manipulations. One hundred twelve community college students and 48 Cornell students participated in the experiment. Each read a single version of…

Examines the extent to which Japanese learners of English as a Second Language acquired a rule regulating the argument structure frames of novel English verbs after exposure to grammatical examples of sentences containing the verbs. Results showed significant differences in the extent of learning, with the focus-on-form conditions outperforming…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 17 titles deal with the following topics: the effects of preinstructional activities on the learning and retention of prose; the interaction of picture and print in reading instruction; the perception of structure in scrambled…

Proponents of the cognitive approach to language teaching list linguistic competence as the primary instructional objective and attribute considerable importance to listening comprehension. For the student, linguistic competence would be knowledge of grammatical components of the language and its vocabulary. Understanding oral messages is an…