This book explores the many visually oriented activities that can be used to teach the composition process. Chapter one outlines the format of the book and discusses the composition process in terms of visual perception and reaction to visual stimuli. Chapter two introduces the general aspects of composition that are pertinent to all types of…

Based on the author's PhD dissertation, University of Arkansas.

A study examined whether pictures presented in advance of reading a text (advance organizers) as compared to pictures presented after reading a text (postorganizers) would significantly enhance the reader's retention of the text's content. Sixty college students rated their familiarity with six topics, then read materials presented on the three…

Although numerous studies have indicated that older persons process visual information more slowly than younger persons, the precise nature of age-associated changes in the processing of visually presented information remains unclear. Older adults (N=18) and college students (N=18) performed a visual search task in which lists of words and…

In order to determine the effect of certain types of pictures on reading comprehension in beginning French, a study was conducted in which six types of pictorial contexts were used as advanced organizers for a test passage. One group of university students was given a text in French, a second group the same text in English, and a third group a set…

TO COMPARE CONVENTIONAL AND PROGRAMED INSTRUCTION ON TEACHING AUDITORY DISCRIMINATION OF THE "S" PHONEME, 20 LESSONS CONTAINING STIMULUS AND REPEAT ITEMS WERE RECORDED ON A COMMERCIAL MULTI- CHANNEL DEVICE THAT ALLOWS CONTINUOUS ADJUSTMENT ON THE BASIS OF RESPONSE. THE 40 GRADES TWO-FOUR PARTICIPANTS, MATCHED ON AGE, SEX, AND IQ, WERE…

The development and testing of a visual stimulus for writing, to be used in the initial assessment of liberal arts students at the University of Michigan, is described in this paper. The paper first discusses the questions considered by the university committee charged with establishing the assessment process regarding student writers' fluency,…

A previous study by Gibson et al. (1972) that investigated the effect of orthographic structure on letter search was replicated and extended in order to identify factors that might explain the apparent discrepancy between their results and those of comparable studies. Experiment one tested whether the discrepancy might be explained by difference…

Research on learning and conditioning suggests that verbal response modification does not occur in the absence of the subject's ability to define verbally (1) the response-reinforcement relationships and (2) his intention to change his behavior in the direction of reinforcement. This seems to be true for operant conditioning of verbal behavior,…

This study investigates the hypothesis that reflective children have a tendency for detailed analysis of information whereas impulsive children process information more globally, and that differences in strategies of visual information processing of these two conceptual style groups lead to superior performance of reflective children insofar as…

This report is an attempt to analyze the aggression which occurs within extended dyadic interchanges of parent and child, husband and wife, or sibling and peers. An argument is made for a "performance" theory of children's noxious behaviors based on the assumption that most children, exposed to modeling and reinforcing contingencies through which…

This paper presents the results of investigations into mature readers' focal point when viewing letters, words, and phrases. The focal points are accurately determined by using the after image created from a spot of light. The after image is then superimposed on the reading material. The results show that the focal point does not fall haphazardly…

This paper reports an exploratory investigation of motor patterns characteristic of maternal gameplaying behavior conducted with forty-eight 4-, 6- and 8-month-old infants and their mothers. Videotapes of 6-minute laboratory mother-infant play sessions were segmented into maternal games which were categorized according to the type and complexity…

The extent to which children of two age levels use visual or name codes in recognizing similarities and differences between short words was studied. Subjects were presented with a word for .5, 1.0, or 1.5 seconds, followed immediately by a second word, and were instructed to press a key indicating whether or not the two words had the same name.…