Children from four to eight years of age were asked to construct a three-dimensional toy under one of three conditions: 40 children viewed a filmed demonstration of the procedure, 40 children were provided with a series of photographs depicting critical stages in the construction, and a third group of 30 students acted as controls. (Author/RH)

Analyzes and categorizes directional factors, and exploratory sequences related to them, via videotaped sessions of two teenage school work groups. Shows stimuli which initiate exploratory sequences are found for all directional factors in problem solving or decision making. Reveals rule-governed or routinized behavior relates to directional…

Suggests that disabled readers can benefit from the use of mnemonic devices as they learn to recognize words and identify their meanings. (FL)

Two groups of undergraduates were forced to process a maplike organizer before or after reading a difficult prose passage concerning the formation of a meander. Subjects with little prior knowledge, provided with the organizer, recalled at a level similar to subjects with a good deal of background knowledge. (Author/CM)

Examines the influences of behaviorist psychology on performance and instruction technologies. The basic assumptions of behaviorism are outlined, reinforcing contingencies are reviewed, conditioning is described, and such specific topics as stimulus control, behavior chaining, and successive approximation are discussed. (Author/JL)

The effectiveness of a Likert-scale and three paired-choice presentation formats in discriminating among parents' preferences for curriculum elements were compared. Paired-choice formats gave more reliable discriminations which increased with stimulus specificity. Similarities and differences in preference orderings are discussed. (Author/CM)

Specific comparisons for a categorized set of items indicated that recall of detailed drawings and outlines was superior to recall of words. For an uncategorized set, outlines were recalled significantly better than pictures and both were recalled better than words. (Author/PN)

Significant differences between dyslexic children and controls were found in identification and discrimination of synthesized voiced stop consonants differing in place of articulation. Results suggest an inconsistency in the dyslexics' phonetic classification of auditory cues. A significant relationship was found between reading level and speech…

Reviewed studies that used methods of brief lateral visual presentation of linguistic stimuli to investigate asymmetry of organization in the cerebral hemispheric functions of both normal and poor readers. Most studies failed to demonstrate that both groups approach the given tasks in the same way. (Author/DB)

The perception of syllable-initial stop consonants as voiced or voiceless was shown to depend on prevailing rate of articulation. Reducing articulatory rate of a precursor phrase causes a greater proportion of test consonants to be identified as voiced. Timing should be regarded as intrinsic to the acoustical specifications of phonetic events.…

Assesses the impact of the visual complexity of "Sesame Street" segments on preschoolers' visual attention, recall, and recognition. Results indicate that attention and learning are enhanced by (1) visually simple sets in terms of few objects on the screen and (2) low to moderate levels of screen activity. (PD)

Four experiments demonstrated that mental images are functionally equivalent to physical errors of movement in producing changes in visual-motor coordination, at both central and peripheral levels of the visual-motor system. Subjects observed or imagined pointing errors after pointing movements were completed. Imagery vividness ratings were also…

Earlier research with the lexical decision task led to the hypothesis that semantic context facilitates the encoding of words related to the context. Six experiments which employed different tasks (e.g., making a lexical decision) and different experimental paradigms (e.g., tachistoscopic exposures with masking stimuli) further investigated this…

Recent findings related to neurological research include: (1) the Proster Theory implies that the brain works by sets of programs or prosters; (2) the Brain Growth Spurts theory defines the growth of the brain in spurts with cycles of rest; and (3) in the Hemispheric Specialization Theory, the left and right hemispheres of the brain have specific…

Third- and fifth-grade children were presented with a picture-naming interference task to examine the effects of printing words in mixed typecase on children's automatic word processing. (Author/MP)