The structure of conceptual interrelationships in a group of college students was assessed and intervention techniques to alter the conceptual structure were designed and implemented. A technique reducing the number of concepts identified for alteration and requiring students to compare concepts produced a substantial shift in students' concept…

The article reviews the history of the neurological concepts still influencing the remediation of reading disabilities and presents current concepts on the condition. A review of current thinking on the interaction of attention, memory, and linguistic functions concludes the discussion. (CL)

Corrects errors in "A Developmental Study of Learning Disabilities and Memory" by Stephen J. Ceci (Volume 38, Number 2 1984), pages 352-371. (AS)

Compared to placebo controls, 28 individuals treated with Piracetam (a new drug thought to enhance learning and memory consolidation) showed statistically significant improvements above baseline scores on measures of effective reading accuracy and comprehension, reading speed, and writing accuracy. The medication was well tolerated and showed no…

Compared the early recollections of 50 first-borns and 98 later-borns. The first-borns mentioned significantly more nonfamily members, illness/injury, hospital/doctor's office. Later-borns mentioned significantly more siblings than did first-borns. Findings were discussed in the context of Adler's personality theory. (JAC)

Suggests that a factor underlying the complex analysis of prose is amount of elaboration. Reports findings of two experiments supporting this idea. (FL)

Semantic processing, the form of stories linking to-be-remembered words, was compared with cumulative rehearsal in a free-recall task for 60 educable mentally retarded adolescents. Semantic-processing Ss showed better recall at original learning and, to a lesser extent, at a 2-week retention test. (Author/CL)

Examines the effects of word duration on memory span in subjects of different ages. Concludes that developmental increases in short-term memory span can be explained in terms of increases in speech rate. Suggests that increases in speech rate with age reflect increases in the speed of articulation of individual words. (Author/AS)

This study examines the utility of an elaboration hypothesis as a means of predicting the recall of major ideas from text through the manipulation of paragraphs and via the use of inserted questions requiring different levels of elaboration. (PN)

Two studies investigated (1) the ability of learning disabled children to perform tasks that specifically demand the recognition and production of main-idea statements, and (2) their ability to detect an inappropriate sentence in a paragraph. (PN)

Reports on a study designed to show that Tulving's theory of encoding specificity and Bahrick's theory of associative continuity are not contradictory, rather complementary. (CLK)

This article describes an experiment which explores the relationship between the interval between the two occurrences of the repeated item to be recalled and the memory for the repeated item, and argues that both spacing and lag effects are dependent upon factors associated with study-phase retrieval. (CLK)

Represents a more complete test of Glanzer's model of memory than has been provided to date in that the overt rehearsal data offer a means of assessing whether subjects reorganize phonemically related items in short-term store. (Author/RK)

Two experiments examined factors underlying false alarms on recognition tests when the elements of the test items were presented alone for study at different points in time, and when the elements were parts of different 2-element units during study. (Editor)

Past research has distinguished between two alternative representational systems that are used in perceptual learning--distinctive features and schemas. This study examines the influence of short-term memory on the initial utility of these systems and the influence of long-term memory on retention of these forms of learning. (Editor)