It has been repeatedly argued among vocabulary researchers that semantically related words should not be taught simultaneously because they can interfere with each other. However, the question of what types of relatedness cause interference has rarely been examined carefully. In addition, there are disagreements among the past studies that have…

Learning is the acquisition and storage of information as a consequence of experience. The human brain is designed in such a way that thousands bits of sensory data are processed each minute. The brain pays attention to what is relevant to daily life, always asking: "What's going on?" and "How is it important relevant to me?"…

Word properties like imageability and word frequency improve cued recall of verbal paired-associates. We asked whether these enhancements follow simply from prior effects on item-memory, or also strengthen associations between items. Participants studied word pairs varying in imageability or frequency: pairs were "pure" (high-high, low-low) or…

Studies of the effects of imagery instructions and other imagery induction on prose learning are included in this progress report. Five experiments were conducted to establish a developmental trend for ability to use imagery-related mediation in whole passage learning. Observations indicate that six year olds are inhibited in paraphrase recall of…

Investigates the effect of imagery ability upon performance in free recall and relates this effect to the distinction between primary and secondary memory. (Author/RK)

A variant of the Peterson (1959) paradigm was used to investigate retrieval of single pairs of items varying in imagery value. Latency to respond showed that if one item was concrete, no differential retrieval speeds were found. This result supports an organizational view of imagery. (CHK)

Investigated effects of two kinds of imagery on age differences in the ability to solve series problems. Overall, older adults (N=47) obtained lower scores than younger adults (N=41). However, results suggest older adults can use imagery as a control process, but are less likely to use imagery in abstract situations. (Author/JAC)

The study was designed to developmentally assess the effect of relational imagery training, unitized pictorial relations, and the combination of both on the recall of noun triplets by 120 first, third and sixth graders. In the unitized picture condition, relations were imposed by the experimenter, whereas the relational imagery training condition…

Report from the Wisconsin Research and Development Center for Cognitive Learning, supported in part as a research and development center by funds from the United States Office of Education, Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. (VM)

Studies support the hypothesis that images aroused by discreet verbal stimuli can be integrated into complex images with the result that: (a) storage capacity requirements are reduced, and (b) recall of one component of the image leads to effective redintegration of the rest. (JB)

The present study was conducted to demonstrate the power of imagery instructional sets to improve the recall of units more complex than in the traditional paired associate (P-A) paradigm and to evaluate imagery as a memory organizer. Forty-eight sixth grade children were randomly assigned to one of four experimental conditions, defined by the…

Noun pairs were learned by younger and older adults. Anticipation and presentation intervals were manipulated, and there were no-imagery, experimenter-provided imagery, and self-generated imagery instructions. Older subjects generated and used imagery with the same facility as younger subjects, although retrieval time was longer. (GO)