How can science teachers support students in developing an appropriate declarative knowledge base for solving problems? This article focuses on the question whether the development of students' memory of scientific propositions is better served by writing propositions down on paper or by making drawings of propositions either by silent or…

According to the Task Support Hypothesis (TSH; Bowler et al. in Neuropsychologia 35:65-70, 1997) individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) perform more similarly to their typically developing peers on learning and memory tasks when provided with external support at retrieval. We administered the California Verbal Learning Test-Children's…

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,…

To investigate the relationship between regional hippocampal volume and memory in healthy elderly, 147 community-based volunteers, aged 55-83 years, were evaluated using magnetic resonance imaging, the Groton Maze Learning Test, Visual Reproduction and the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test. Hippocampal volumes were determined by interactive…

Previous research has demonstrated a benefit of music training on a number of cognitive functions including verbal memory performance. The impact of school-based music programs on memory processes is however relatively unknown. The current study explored the effect of increasing frequency and intensity of classroom-based instrumental training…

The best research studies are more noteworthy for the issues they raise than for the questions they answer. Being informative is good; being heuristic is better. The two papers under consideration are heuristic as well as informative. Thus, Wong, Kasari, Freeman, and Paparella (2007) provide an answer to the question of what might influence the…

Subjects memorized subject-verb-object propositions and then judged whether verb-object probes appeared in the same proposition. Reaction times and error rates were observed. Data indicate that activation spreads from probe concepts in parallel through the propositional network. A guessing model for errors was constructed. (CHK)

This paper evaluates associative theories of sentence memory, based on the model of J.R. Anderson and G.H. Bower. A model of Human Associative Memory (HAM) is generalized and defined, and alternative models incorporating configural information are presented. (CK)

TWO GROUPS OF SUBJECTS, DESIGNATED PACED AND UNPACED, WERE USED TO DETERMINE WHETHER SELF-PACING IS ADVANTAGEOUS OR NECESSARY IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF EFFICIENT TECHNIQUES OF MEMORIZING. EACH GROUP LEARNED 8 LISTS OF 25 WORDS EACH, 2 LISTS PER SESSION. AT THE FIFTH SESSION, THE PACED GROUP LEARNED TWO ADDITIONAL LISTS UNDER SELF-PACED CONDITIONS.…

Results of an experiment with children ages 3-11 years performing serial recall tasks suggest that it is not until about age 5 years that children's overt speech reaches a functional stage that would justify internalization. (Author/WY)

SEVENTY-FIVE FEMALE PSYCHOLOGY STUDENTS PARTICIPATED IN A STUDY WHICH INVESTIGATED THE EFFECT OF GROUP PRESSURE ON THE RETENTION OF PREVIOUSLY LEARNED VERBAL MATERIAL IN A CONTROLLED LABORATORY SETTING. THE SUBJECTS WERE RANDOMLY ASSIGNED TO FIVE SITUATIONS, 15 TO A GROUP, AND WENT THROUGH 4 STEPS IN THE EXPERIMENT -- (1) ORIGINAL LEARNING, (2)…

Recent theories of verbal memory have hypothesized that memory for a stimulus is not represented by a unitary memory trace, but rather by a coding on several attributes of the event. The present experiment tested the differential forgetting hypothesis in a unique way. Words were presented either visually (V) or auditorally (A) in a continuous…

An experiment was carried out to study the processes of linguistic memory. Subjects were asked to read aloud brief prose passages and repeat what they had read. The "deviations" from the original passages were analyzed to determine the time of the deviation, during decoding or recall. (Text is in Italian.) (CFM)

Research supported by grants HD-01888 and HD-01136 from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, and grant No. GS-541 from the National Science Foundation.

The effect on concept learning of requiring the memorization of either examples or nonexamples prior to going through a theoretically effective training program was compared to the performance of groups of seventh and eighth graders who either memorized nothing or memorized subconcepts of the concept definition. Correct classification scores and…