Two experiments were conducted to establish the psychological validity of the text type distinction. In the first, 20 college students sorted 12 texts on the basis of their similarities. The resultant sortings were subjected to a clustering analysis. Despite the fact that other bases for grouping texts existed--a number of pairs of semantically…

Psychological research concerning several aspects of the relationship between existing knowledge schemata and the processing of text is summarized in this report. The first section is concerned with dynamic processes of story understanding, with emphasis on the integration of information. The role of prior knowledge in accommodating parts of…

A new approach to the study of memory, "metamemory," takes as its central task the description and explanation of what children know or understand about the nature of memory, the characteristics of their own memories, and the specific techniques they use to store and retrieve information in different task situations. In this study of…

A sentence "pragmatically implies" another sentence when information in the first sentence leads the hearer to expect something that is neither explicitly stated nor necessarily implied by the original sentence. Thus, the sentence "The safe-cracker put the match to the fuse" pragmatically implies that "the safe-cracker lit…

Memory storage and retrieval of learning disabled (LD) and normal children at two age levels (8-9 years and 11-12 years) were compared using a multitrial free recall paradigm. Stimuli were two lists of 20 high frequency nouns. Each child was tested individually on both lists on different days; one presentation was blocked, one random with…

The availability of semantic information in storage and the accessibility of that information for retrieval was studied with 40 retarded and 40 nonretarded adolescents. In Experiment I, Ss were required to retrieve information from semantic categories, as well as judge whether specific items were members of a given category. Results showed that…

If a series of verbal units is presented for study, and if a unit occurs two or more times in the series, the practice schedule for these multiple occurrences may be massed or distributed. In massed practice (MP) the item occupies adjacent positions; in distributed practice (DP) successive occurences are separated by at least one other unit. The…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of underlining on material which subjects were expected to learn. The subjects were 120 female undergraduate students enrolled in an introductory psychology course. All subjects were presented with a booklet containing instructions on the first page followed by a passage of approximately 700…

The purpose of this study was to systematically investigate the effects of various orienting tasks on the recall of prose material. In particular, subjects were asked to read a prose passage while performing either a semantic (outlining the material) or a nonsemantic (circling e's) orienting task under either incidental or intentional recall…

This summary of research performed during the past five and one-half years and dealing with different attributes in memory functioning is organized around four attributes of memory: "Frequency Attribute: Verbal Discrimination" explores the development of the theory dealing with verbal discrimination tasks and lists several papers prepared during…

A study and replication tested whether memory aptitudes interacted with note-taking, paying attention, or responding to test-like events during lecture instruction. Regression analyses were accomplished by means of the single predictor-single criterion case of the modified Johnson-Neyman statistical technique. A disordinal interaction between…

Six studies were performed investigating the relationship between digit span (DS) capacity and other memory and problem solving tasks: (1) Ss were administered a DS test, an aurally presented mental addition test, a similar multiplication task, and a written timed division test. DS correlated only with the second; (2) Ss were required to…

An increase in the amount of material to be learned increases the difficulty of the learning task. The function describing this length difficulty relation was obtained by measuring the amount of time 20 college students spent studying arrays of four, six, eight, and ten consonants before they were ready to be tested on them. Identification and…

Studies (2) of auditory memory performance are reported. Children were asked to recall material which permitted different language habits to be used (structural, and meaningful). Lower socio-economic status (LSES) Negro children performed more like their middle socio-economic status white (MSES) counterparts on non-contingent strings. When…

This study tested the hypothesis that the memory of meaningful material can be reactivated without relearning by means of hypnotic suggestion. Very susceptible (T) and non-susceptible (UT) subjects were sought from among those who volunteered for the experiment. Two forms of a memory test for connected meaningful material were developed. Each form…