Reports the results of two experiments that examined the relative effects of questions requiring decisions, statements providing the decision information to the students, questions not requiring decisions, and control procedures on student's memory for chemistry text reading materials. Discusses results in terms of an elaboration perspective on…

To establish meaningful links between preservice and inservice teachers' background experiences and abstract concepts, relevant research studies are simulated in teacher training sessions. A simulated research activity is described, using the example of helping teachers understand models of memory to better teach mnemonic strategies to handicapped…

Studied the influence of intelligence, self-concept, and causal attributions on metamemory and the metamemory-memory behavior relationship in elementary school children. Results indicated that intelligence had an impact on metamemory in all age groups; and that metamemory remains an important predictor of memory behavior. (Author/RWB)

The structure of cognitive abilities was examined through tests administered to 81 prelingually deaf Yougoslavian children (ages seven to eight). Results suggested the existence of two levels of cognitive organization: (1) automatic (involving highly integrated perceptual skills and short-term memory); and (2) representational (involving symbols…

The author describes his research experience in identifying potentially unique learning characteristics of gifted students. Visual imagery, mnemonics, spatial organization, and higher level verbal learning strategies are explored. Among broad conclusions reached is the perception of gifted students as active learners who spontaneously transform…

Four experiments investigated the attentional requirements of learning as assessed by a serial reaction time task. The effects of a dual-task condition, plus the responses of memory disorder patients, were also investigated. The relationship between learning and awareness, preserved learning in amnesia, and the separateness of memory systems are…

To test the selective recall hypothesis, male and female British adolescents listened to a tape recording of "findings" about sex differences. Fifteen of the findings were pro-female and 15 were anti-male. Males, especially those with more negative attitudes towards women, recalled less pro- and more anti-female items. (KH)

Two experiments examined hyperactive children's tendency to underfocus their attention during learning. Taken together, the results of both experiments demonstrated the validity of the attentional diffusion hypothesis and indicate the need to assess the central processing demands associated with central and incidental learning in order to evaluate…

Major research findings relevant to use of the Wechsler Digit Span subtest in psychoeducational assessment are summarized. The cognitive processes and behavioral characteristics which determine performance on Digit Span are related to complex abilities. Recommendations and implications for research and assessment practice are presented.…

Provides evidence for the utility of schema-based frameworks which assume that schemas and scripts organize information, aid in comprehension, and guide information retrieval. (FL)

Reports the use of a memory load-interference paradigm and the easy-to-hard paradigm as converging operations to study capacity limitations in five- to six-year-old's reasoning. Concludes that transitive inference ability in children is capacity limited. (HOD)

Kindergarten, second-grade, and fifth-grade students reconstructed an episode from an array of pictures and foils. Generally, children integrated picture sequences into logically ordered episodes whenever sequence structure encouraged such organization. Among the results, recall of logical sequences surpassed that of illogical sequences at all…

Results revealed that arithmetic-disabled and spelling/arithmetic-disabled children had significantly lower storage and retrieval scores on a nonverbal task but did not differ on a verbal task; reading/spelling-disabled children differed only on retrieval scores from verbal task; and the reading/spelling/arithmetic-disabled children differed only…

Adjective noun-noun word triplets were presented in an acquisition encoding context to second and fourth graders and college students to determine if they were compatible with trace information in memory and change with age. (HOD)

Two explanations of the levels effect in text memory were examined in two experiments. Results supported the predictions of the referential coherence formulation and failed to support the structural height account. (Author/LMO)