In understanding comprehension as the active processing of reading material, and in assuming that certain key content is stored in the memory, then mnemonic cues could be one important means of recalling this stored information. Since associative words apparently have high mnemonic cue value, they have been the subject of numerous investigations.…

Norms of free association to common ambiguous English words are reported. Responses were categorized on the basis of sense relevance. On this basis, the sense dominance of the words was quantified, and the degree of ambiguity associated with each word estimated by the information measure U. This publication will be of interest primarily to…

Examines the effects of having both a semantic and a superficial perceptual category for organizing lists of words in free recall. Discusses the effect of individual difference characteristics, such as personality characteristics of the subject, on the results. (EKN)

The purpose of the experiment was to test the prediction that non-specific facilitated learning of a second prose passage will occur in the situation where an initial passage read by the subjects contained concrete referents designed to increase the comprehension of a difficult to understand second passage. Two-hundred and forty subjects…

Four experiments are reported in which relations of semantic distance to response latencies in similarity judgments, to reaction times in a same-different classification task, and to proximity of recall in a free recall task were investigated. (Author/RM)

Free-association norms for 200 words were obtained in 1964 from the responses of 500 subjects in each of grades four through eight, 10, and 12 and from 1,000 college students. An analysis of this normative data revealed that (1) the frequency of occurrence of the most popular associative responses to stimulus words increases with the age of the…

A study is reported in which pairs of synonyms, antonyms, coordinates, and super super-subordinates were presented dichotically to university students. After each pair the subject reported what he heard. In one condition the two members of a pair were presented simultaneously, and in another they were presented sequentially. (Author/RM)

This review of professional literature on the psychology of language summarizes and interprets selected books and articles published during the period 1957-60. The literature, selected on the basis of importance and applicability to education, is considered under the following headings: theories, research techniques, verbal learning, and…

This document is the seventh report in the Language Research in Progress (LRIP) series, and lists a wide variety of language-related research projects current between April 1968 and November 1968. Research projects terminated in the six months prior to publication are included as well. Approximately 250 projects in the U.S. and abroad are…