Since structural dimensions of knowledge and learner contribute to preferred message structure, an understanding of structural relationships can aid in the more effective design of instructional messages. Five studies were conducted to explore these relationships. Knowledge structure was defined as the iconic representation of the body of…

This dissertation examines the thesis that it is the human language system which largely makes possible the human capacity for modifiability of responses called "intelligent" and "adaptive" modes of interaction with the environment. Chapter titles are (1) A Process View of Human Behavior, (2) Aspects of the Multi-Dimensional Nature of Cognitive…

The effects of prompting and confirmation on automated presentation of materials in discrimination learning were studied. Eight pairs of words or pictures were presented to 48 mentally retarded subjects (mean IQ 63, mean chronological age 163.4 months, mean mental age 103.3 months). Each subject's correct responses advanced the program and, in the…

This experiment was based on the assumption that the academic failure of the disadvantaged or middle class child is due to a failure of instruction and that if above-normal learning schedules were maintained, the second year of an enrichment program would not show the customary drop in gains from the first year. The subjects of this study were 43…

Tested the hypothesis that individual differences in immediate-verbal-memory span predict success in second-language vocabulary acquisition. In the two-session study, adult subjects learned 56 English-Finnish translations. Tested one week later, subjects were less likely to remember those words they had difficulty learning, even though they had…

A study investigated whether a visual selective attention deficit with its presumed basis in slow visual processing referred to the same phonological recoding deficit, or whether they were two independent sources of reading disability. Subjects were children aged 7 to 15 referred to a university clinic (the Waterloo Child Assessment…

Evaluation studies conducted in 1978 at three sites yielded encouraging results regarding the ability of the Basic Skills Learning System (BSLS) to achieve the goals of adult basic education and demonstrated that effective curriculum models utilizing well-designed instructional paradigms can offer high quality instruction in the basic skills when…

A set of eight widely used inductive reasoning tests were investigated to determine whether or not they have different factorial structures. The eight inductive tests and three deductive tests, taken from the French Kit of Reference Tests for Cognitive Factors and the Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal, were administered to 157 high school…

EVEN MORE THAN A RATIONAL ANIMAL, MAN IS A SYMBOLIZING ANIMAL, CREATING HIS OWN CHANGING REPRESENTATIONS OF REALITY. INSTRUMENTAL TO THIS PROCESS IS LANGUAGE, FOR IT PROVIDES THE BEST MEANS FOR STRUCTURING BOTH PAST AND FUTURE EXPERIENCE. THE VERBALIZATION OF BOTH PERSONAL AND VICARIOUS EXPERIENCE MAKES US REEVALUATE AND RESTRUCTURE OUR…

At the Child Language Development Center at the University of Rochester, basic research in children's verbal behavior and the exploration of procedures for extending successful laboratory techniques to the typical preschool setting are being continued. Experiments in contingency management and the establishment of requisite antecedent behaviors…

This review of professional literature on the psychology of language summarizes and interprets selected books and articles published during the period 1957-60. The literature, selected on the basis of importance and applicability to education, is considered under the following headings: theories, research techniques, verbal learning, and…

Forty undergraduate college students participated in a computer-assisted instructional study designed to utilize right cerebral hemisphere functions in the learning and memory process. Two versions of a lesson on how a simple battery works were designed to present conceptual and topographic information either verbally or pictorially on a Plato IV…

This discussion of verbal communication seeks to bring a new "unity" and order into the study of linguistics, to make linguistics truly an interdisciplinary science, and to communicate more effectively with the outside world, peopled by those who do not speak linguistic jargon. The particular linguistic problem here is an exploratory…

A series of seven experiments provided information on the relationship between the learning of prose and the structural importance of the linguistic subunits. Five samples of prose, including narrative folktales and two samples of textual prose, were studied to determine whether the patterning of learning corresponded to the structural importance…

This research contrasts the learning effects of an affective dimension of meaningfulness with the word-quality of consonant-vowel-consonant trigrams. Subject rated trigrams for both "association value"--having word-quality versus lacking word-quality--and "reinforcement value"--liking versus disliking the trigram regardless of word quality. Paired…