Verbal pretraining aided both single-problem discrimination and learning-set performance, while single-problem mastery manipulations had no significant effect. These results support the theory of acquired distinctiveness of cues. (MH)

Reports on research on the effect of various encoding and retrieval conditions on sentence recall. (AM)

Three experiments investigated the hypothesis that, when interpreted in context, general terms are typically encoded on the basis of an instantiation. Results indicated that a particular term naming the expected instantiation of a general term was a better cue for recall of a sentence than the general term itself. (CHK)

Two aspects of memory for prose were investigated. The amount of information remembered and the semantic interpretation assigned to ambiguous paragraphs. Task instructions and exposure duration of passages were varied. Recall and recognition measures indicated students remembered more with instructions requiring processing at a semantic level.…

Listeners shadowed lists of words or parts of sentences, and shadowing latencies were recorded. The effect of attended context was interpreted as a result of strategical manipulation of response bias (a resource-limited process), whereas unattended context may be effective through spreading excitation in semantic memory (a data-limited process).…

Describes an experiment designed to test predictions derived from a model of recognition memory that assumes no retrieval processes. It is argued that context effects do not necessarily imply retrieval processes in recognition. (Author/AM)

An experiment is reported which shows that with identical preceding context, the same initial phoneme targets contained in high transitional probability words were responded to significantly faster than those in low transitional probability words. The result argues for the importance of transitional probability as an independent variable in…

Three experiments examined the incidental associations between list-learning material and the environmental context of that list's presentation. The environmental reinstatement effect is that subjects remember more when tested in their original learning environment relative to those tested in a new environmental context. (Author/GDC)

Two experiments tested for effects of intralist cues upon recognition probability. Categorized and random lists were each tested, with targets appearing with zero, one or three intralist cues. Experiments showed substantial effects of trials and list type, but not of intralist context. (CHK)

Three experiments investigated whether abstract as well as concrete sentences can be processed in a holistic manner. Results suggest that the processing of both types of sentences involves construction of particularized, holistic mental representations that contain information and inferences based on context and knowledge of language and the…

Experiments were conducted to determine the effects of sentence contexts on word recognition and reading. The questions of whether context is predominantly facilitating or inhibiting and how automatic the influence of contexts is on word retrieval were investigated. (SW)

Forty-eight pupils from grades one, three, and five participated in a study of the extent to which children are able to use their prior knowledge and expectancies to aid them in integrating verbal material and in drawing appropriate inferences. Six stories were constructed for each of four inference levels, and 11 questions were prepared for each…

The effects of semantic (S), orthographic (O), and unrelated (U) verbal stimuli on word retrieval were examined. S stimuli inhibited locating items within categories, whereas U stimuli inhibited locating the appropriate category. The discrepancy between the present outcome and the previous finding of S prime retrieval facilitation is discussed.…