The degree to which concreteness of prose material presented in an auditory fashion would interact with learners' lateral preference under different right hemispheric presentation conditions was investigated with 96 adults. Subjects recalled a greater number of ideas when the passage was concrete. Abstractness interacted with cerebral dominance.…

In two experiments, undergraduates did/did not create a maplike representation while learning a passage, and were either forced to study the map, instructed to study, or given no map prior to reading. Free-recall data showed that forced map study benefited learners with low vocabulary scores. (Author/GK)

Research has suggested that the two hemispheres of the brain serve specialized functions, with the most recent studies portraying the left hemisphere as processing information in a linear, serial, or sequential manner and the right hemisphere as processing information in a holistic, concrete, or visual mode. Although few systematic studies have…

Two groups of undergraduates were forced to process a maplike organizer before or after reading a difficult prose passage concerning the formation of a meander. Subjects with little prior knowledge, provided with the organizer, recalled at a level similar to subjects with a good deal of background knowledge. (Author/CM)