The authors of this current study compared the memory performance of adolescent students with specific reading disabilities (RD) with that of typical adolescent readers on a newly developed verbal learning test, the "Bergen-Tucson Verbal Learning Test" (BTVLT). This multiple trial test was designed to measure memory acquisition,…

Retroactive interference (RI) in list learning occurs when the learning of a second list of words interferes with the recall of the first learned list. Having the lists be thematically different can reduce retroactive interference within list learning; however, this study demonstrates how RI can be reduced when the lists contain similar words.…

Results in Experiment I contradict certain predictions regarding the effect of presentation time on nominal and functional serial-position curves. Experiment II indicates that differences between nominal and functional curves are not an artifact produced by item selection. (Author/RM)

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)

The results of this study indicate that age differences in the recall of high frequency word lists are not related to the total presentation time of the lists but appear to be affected by differences in retrieval processes as a function of age. (JMB)

To show the organization of recall, items that are remembered together can be written on the same line of a two-dimensional (2D) grid. Such 2D recall does not induce the clustering it reveals. Various aspects of 2D recall and the clustering it reveals are discussed. (Author/RM)

Spaced presentations of 12- and 15-word lists were better recalled when no task or an easy task intervened between presentations. Results indicate a lack of generality in Bjork and Allen's 1970 findings and a need for a two-factor theory of the spacing effect, and are evidence for a spacing effect. (CHK)

Subjects studied and were tested for recognition and recall of target words on lists of cue-target word pairs. List-cued recall was higher than non-cued recall, suggesting that recognition failure is independent of subjects' familiarity with task requirements. This contradicts attribution of encoding specificity phenomena to subjects' confusion.…

In two experiments using the Brown-Peterson memory paradigm, instructions to guess had small effects on recall, but sizeable effects on incidence of prior list intrustion. However, results indicate that proactive interference is primarily the result of inability to generate correct items, rather than confusion between present and previous items.…

Research supported by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. (DD)

Short-term memory for single-syllable words is negatively related to the number of semantic categories from which the words are drawn. Test results are inconsistent with any theory postulating a separate short-term memory that takes no account of semantic factors. (CHK)

When subjects utter a series of redundant sounds while memorizing word lists, performance is impaired and phonemic similarity effect is reduced. Experiments explored the influence of articulatory suppression on free recall; neither showed interaction between suppression and serial position. Recency effect may not reflect short-term phonemic store.…

Examines the inhibition of recall of list items when extralist items are introduced, and describes experiments which suggest that this is an expression of a more general inhibition phenomenon. (Author/AM)

Subjects were asked to encode and recall lists of words under the influences of marijuana and a marijuana placebo. Free recall was more complete when both encoding and recall were after marijuana use than in the encode-marijuana, recall-placebo state. Recall must depend on restoration of dissociated encoding state. (CHK)