Examined use of themes in reminiscence therapy groups for older women. Themes used in protocols for three research studies were analyzed. Results revealed that, for one of the three studies, the female participants' (n=67) most-discussed themes were favorite holiday, first pet, and first job. (Author/NB)

Investigated the specificity of reading-disabled children's deficits in working memory capacity. Found that reading-disabled 10-year-olds performed worse than normal-reading children, matched for chronological age and reading age, on all measures of working memory capacity. Their poorer performance seemed to be due to a general lack of capacity…

Examined whether developmental differences exist in availability of inferences during listening comprehension. Presented child and adult subjects with consistent and inconsistent passages to determine outcome of expected and unexpected messages on memory. Found that children were more likely than adults to retain incorrect information in active…

Two experiments studied infants' use of remembered knowledge of auditory-visual events to guide reaching and grasping. Results indicated that reaching was initiated and completed after sound cues ceased. Accurate searching depended on subjects' experience in light presentation. Results suggest that 6 1/2-month-olds can represent unseen objects and…

Notes that children either actively participated by asking questions or passively participated by listening to a recast containing a familiar synonym for each target word. Finds that children with higher vocabulary knowledge acquired significantly more words than did passive participants, and children with high versus low working memory did not…

Examines connectionist simulations indicating that starting with simplified inputs or limited memory is not necessary in training recurrent neural networks to learn pseudo-natural languages; such restrictions hinder acquisition. Suggests that Gold's theorem and possible lack of explicit negative evidence do not implicate innate,…

Proposes a minimal set of principles based on short-term and long-term memory mechanisms that can explain the major static and dynamic properties of operant behavior in both single-choice and multiresponse situations. The model predicts the major qualitative features of operant phenomena and suggests an experimental test of theoretical predictions…

Hypothesizes a resonance process in which concepts and propositions in the discourse resonate in response to related elements in the current sentence, initiating a process that makes available a subset of the information in the representation. Reviews research; presents explicit assumptions about the discourse representation; and describes results…

Posits that intelligibility is a persistent problem in interactive multimedia and hypermedia. Describes the Art of Memory, a visual and symbolic mnemonic method used to map new information onto familiar and symbolically different structures. Presents the Art of Memory as a way to offer insight into intelligibility. (PA)

Discusses prevailing remembrance practices related to a massacre at one Montreal university, addressing what has contributed to their normative form, problems resulting from those formations, and potential new memorials. The article proposes an argument for understanding the event not only as the killings, but also as the memorial formations that…

Notes that in Native American storytelling, memory is seen through an already existing story or recognized as a familiar category of experience that is widely shared. Suggests that the implications of the merging of tribal memory and personal memory are profound and that the reach of the storyteller's memory extends beyond his own lifetime, her…

A connectionist feedforward network implementing a mapping from orthography to phonology is described. This model develops a view of the reading system that accounts for irregular word and pseudoword reading without relying on any system of implicit or explicit conversion rules. The model accounts for skilled reading performance and the patterns…

Shows that recollections of state speaking anxiety decreased over time, and that the rate of attenuation was associated with the speaker's level of trait speaking anxiety. Finds also that recollections of state speaking anxiety (implicit memory) were attenuated over time, and that the magnitude of this decline was predicted by the speaker's level…

This study with 16 adolescents with mental retardation compared free-recall rates under two encoding conditions: (1) fade-in, initially presenting pictures out of focus then slowly fading them into focus; and (2) fade-out, slowly blurring originally clear pictures. Results indicated that free-recall rates were greater for the fade-in items for…

Explains that the author reads the Harry Potter books because of their impact on middle-school-age kids and their appeal to children ages 9 to 15. Explains also that she works in professional development, especially literacy, and that she connects kids and teachers to the books. Admits that she reads the books because "they are wonderful." (SG)