This study obtained, under controlled conditions, a criterial measure of academic achievement that was typical of ordinary school learning tasks in order to determine the relationships between individual differences and the learning and retention of prose text. The criterion chosen was a multiple choice test on an ordinary written passage studied…

Relations between rank of propositions in descriptive passages, importance ratings, and recall were evaluated in experiments using undergraduates to determine whether passage structure and importance ratings are necessarily related. Importance ratings varied with instructions, but subjects recalled superordinate propositions better than…

The preferred coding processes of 11-year-old children were investigated, as well as the effect of these preferences on recall of verbal material which varied by complexity of imagery, metaphor, and acoustic and semantic features. The hypothesized relationship between coding and personality was studied (f=fiche number). (MH)

Three known methodological approaches were investigated as to their within-test correlative support in the measurement of a phenomena called imagery. Based on these methodologies, repeated dichotomization of subjects into high and low visualizers was significantly consistent. Moreover, self-reported ratings of imagery vividness of prose were…

Basic mathemagenic concepts were tested under instructional conditions. Research areas of interest were the effect of two different types of adjunct questions and adjunct question positions on problem solving ability on prose materials. (Author/DEP)

Previous research conducted from a schema theory perspective has neglected those instances where the reader is confronted with unfamiliar text. This issue is addressed, and initial results on training students to acquire and use form schema in processing relatively unfamiliar descriptive prose are presented. Thirty-two college students were…

The relation between imagery-assisted prose recall and field independence was found to be significantly stronger than the relation between control recall and field independence for third graders, but not for kindergartners. (Author)

A study investigated differences in discourse styles that may affect second language listening comprehension. Ten amateur actors performed three speaking tasks: (1) reading aloud a short self-contained narrative; (2) acting out a memorized script; and (3) conversing with the researcher for 20-30 minutes. Excerpts of the recorded tasks in different…

Two experiments with 172 undergraduate students (70 males and 102 females) examined the relationship among spatial, imagery, and verbal ability and the multitrial free recall of brief prose passages. Results suggest that the psychological mechanisms underlying prose learning performance clearly differ depending on the ability being examined. (SLD)

The purpose of this study was to determine whether individual differences observed in the grammatical morphology of children with specific language impairment (SLI) could be traced to another source, such as the use of weak syllables. Results show that imitations in prosody may restrict the degree of grammatical morpheme use by children with SLI.…