When too much visual stimuli is present, the phenomenon of clutter is known to degrade an individual's perception across a variety of domains, ranging from completing search tasks incorrectly, to decreasing reading speed when letters are too close together. However, research is lacking as to whether the negative effects of clutter impact learning…

Many modern theories propose that perceptual information is represented by the sensorimotor activity elicited by the original stimulus. Scanpath theory (Noton & Stark, 1971) predicts that reinstating a sequence of eye fixations will help an observer recognize a previously seen image. However, the only studies to investigate this are…

A study examined memory for pictures and words in 16 adults with mental retardation and 24 controls. Pictorial superiority effects occurred in free recall and recognition for both intelligence-level groups. Correlational analyses indicated working memory span was primarily related to recall performance, irrespective of stimulus format. (Contains…

Four experiments are reported exploring whether distractor pictures activate their phonological properties in the course of speech production. In Experiment 1, participants were presented with two pictures and were asked to name one while ignoring the other. Distractor pictures were phonologically related, semantically related or unrelated to the…

This study investigated the effects of color cues as well as the absence of such cues on the recognition of visual images using as subjects 28 college students in a basic communications course. The stimulus materials were slides in three categories: (1) original color (realistic), (2) black and white, and (3) non-realistic color format. Subjects…

This paper reports on a study which was conducted to determine the impact of color on learning. The entire seventh-grade class from a Midwest junior high school was used in the study. Each student was randomly assigned into one of four treatment groups: (1) color-cued presentation, color-cued assessment; (2) color-cued presentation, black/white…

This presentation describes the student retention program designed at El Camino Community College (ECC) (California) with a soSHOWme grant. SoSHOWme is the title of a $20,000 Funds for Instructional Improvement grant awarded by the California State Chancellor's Office to measure the improvement of student retention of lecture information that has…