In 2 experiments, college students read a historical passage on aspects of human intelligence. Students were randomly assigned to 2 different instructional conditions to process the passage, mnemonic and free study. Mnemonic participants remembered more names and contributions than did free-study participants. Findings illustrate that mnemonic…

Age differences in memory performance have been ascribed to corresponding differences in the effectiveness of mental memorization procedures. A comparative assessment of opportunity and capability hypotheses is evaluated with reference to results of previous studies of procedural maintenance and transfer following instruction, using a sample of…

Purpose of this study was to ascertain the efficiency of the first letter mnemonic as a memorization strategy. (Authors)

Two experiments were conducted with 124 undergraduate and graduate students to investigate the interaction between strategy use and accessibility to relevant knowledge. Variations in relevant knowledge accessibility significantly affected strategy use on the first memorization trial, and ease of use on the first trial affected maintenance of the…

Two studies investigated memory processes involved in the Visual-Sequential Memory subtest of the Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities. In study 1, differences between second and fourth graders were due to greater use of stimulus labeling strategies by fourth graders. In study 2, labeling strategies were taught, improving performance.…

Findings from 4 experiments with a total of 218 college students, in which the retention interval for second-language vocabulary words was treated as a between-subjects factor, indicate that long-term forgetting is greater for learners instructed to use the keyword mnemonic than for learners engaged in rote rehearsal. (SLD)

Half the subjects were trained to use a serial rehearsal strategy during target set storage and half were given no strategy training. The results indicate that the rate of memory search is IQ-related, and that serial rehearsal training facilitates memory search when rehearsal is covert. (Author/BW)

The authors examined whether the influence of reading purpose on reported use of text-processing strategies was moderated by students' prior knowledge about the topic of the text. Using multiple regression analyses with interaction terms, they found that the effect of reading purpose on reported use of memorization and elaboration strategies…

The keyword mnemonic (KM) was studied in three experiments using 27 university students (15 freshmen) given intensive keyword training. The KM's effectiveness depended on situational factors influencing its ease of implementation. The KM appeared most effective when used selectively and in conjunction with several list presentations at moderate…

The first purpose of this research was to study the effect of distraction on achievement and to clarify some discrepancies in research findings on the effect of response mode. (Author/RK)

Results of two studies using the Esper paradigm to determine development of rule application and discovery are reported. Subjects learned and generalized when rule and structure were provided, but there was little evidence of rule discovery. Manipulations of memory and attention facilitated learning, but only attention facilitated rule discovery.…

Study habits and memorization strategies were found to differ in fourth grade good readers and poor readers. The good readers also achieved higher recall. With training in efficient mnemonic strategies, however, the poor readers performed as well as the good readers. (GDC)

A study involving 32 undergraduate students was conducted to identify mechanisms by which instructional objectives affect learning. Protocols for thinking out loud were examined for evidence of rehearsal activity. Results suggest that instructional objectives enhanced real-time rehearsal activity, recall, and reading time. (TJH)

Kindergarteners asked to predict which of 18 unrelated pictures they would be able to recall were shown to be as discriminating as older children at predicting memorability in a signal-detection analysis. Justifications for why items were memorable showed increased reference to item and task characteristics with increased age. (Author/CM)

The effects of pictorial illustrations on memory for text were studied in 144 college students. Two experiments indicated that illustrations serve a supplementary function; adjunct pictures alone, without special processing instructions, do not help learners encode information that is not normally encoded in the first place. (SLD)