While attempting to refine and redefine the composing process, rhetoric teachers have overlooked research showing how the brain's visual and verbal components interrelate. Recognition of the brain's visual potential can mean more than the use of media with the written word--it also has implications for the writing process itself. For example,…

Three pilot studies--effects of writing prompt modality on writing performance; effect of topic familiarity; and effect of topic, sample and rater group membership on the stability of scoring criteria application--are used to identify the variability in student writing performance. A writing competency test aims to assess writing-specific skills…

Research on three types of visual symbols is discussed in terms of the implications of the findings for instructional developers. The research in question focused on which of three symbol stimuli--concept-related graphic, arbitrary graphic, or verbal label--would most rapidly bring a psychomotor response under control and would maintain control…

A research study was designed to test the relationship between the number of eye fixations and amount of learning as determined by a criterion referenced posttest. The study sought to answer the following questions: (1) Are differences in eye movement indices related to the posttest score? (2) Do differences in eye movement indices of subjects…

In partial replication of an analysis of the 1976 presidential campaign debates, two researchers analyzed the debate between Republican presidential candidates Ronald Reagan and George Bush (Houston, April 23, 1980) for its visual features, (amount and type of camera shots). The visual categories by which camera shots were coded included…

This study was designed to investigate whether problem solving inefficiency in preschool children is the result of subprocess deficiencies in the children's use of logical rules and to assess the influence of 2 mnemonic components (encoding and rehearsal) on problem solving ability. The study subjects, 108 preschool children, were presented with…

This report is the first in a two-part series introducing an interactive activation model of context effects in perception. A model for the perception of letters in words and other contexts is described and applied to a number of experiments. It is proposed that the model accounts for (1) the perceptual advantage for letters in words compared to…

THE DESIGN OF THIS STUDY WAS TO (1) DESCRIBE A WAY OF ANALYZING GRAPHIC OR PICTORIAL MATERIALS, (2) DESIGN SOME STIMULUS MATERIALS WITH THIS METHOD OF ANALYSIS IN MIND, AND (3) TEST SOME PREDICTIONS BASED ON IMPLICATIONS RELATED TO THE ANALYTICAL METHOD IN AN EXPERIMENTAL STUDY. A SET OF GRAPHIC MATERIALS WAS ANALYZED AND DESCRIBED WITHIN A…

A study was conducted by the Air Force to determine the extent to which takeoff/landing skills learned in a simulator equipped with a night visual system would transfer to daytime performance in the aircraft. A transfer-of-training design was used to assess the differential effectiveness of simulator training with a day versus a night…

This report is the second in a two-part series introducing an interactive activation model of context effects in perception. In the first part, a model for the perception of letters in words and other contexts was described and applied to a number of experiments. This second part applies the same model to a number of new experiments designed to…

This paper reports an attempt to research sensory overstimulation in a variety of children's television programs by rating the level of visual sensory stimulation, auditory sensory stimulation, verbal response patterns and nonverbal response patterns in 45 television programs designed for pre-school children. The Television Rating Inventory (TVRI)…

This study is an investigation of 2-month-old infants' abilities to visually localize visual and auditory peripheral stimuli. Each subject (N=40) was presented with 50 trials; 25 of these visual and 25 auditory. The infant was placed in a semi-upright infant seat positioned 122 cm from the center speaker of an arc formed by five loudspeakers. At…

This study followed the development of visual preferences in a single infant from birth to 10 weeks of age. The stimuli used were 5 x 10 item arrays of squares of lines in which a 3 x 3 target matrix of the other figure type (line or square) was embedded. The direction of first fixation and the total time spent looking at each side were determined…

IN THIS LIMITED STUDY, THE AUTHOR, ASSUMING THAT LOW ABILITY PRESCHOOL CHILDREN FROM POOR FAMILIES HAVE THE MOST DIFFICULTY WITH PROGRAMED INSTRUCTION, USED CARTOONS TO TEST THREE LARGE PROJECT HEADSTART CLASSES (N-280) ON THREE FACTS AND ON EIGHT MORAL ATTITUDE ITEMS. TWICE THE PREFERRED ANSWERS WERE TAUGHT, AND THE CHILDREN RE-TESTED, BUT…

Inquiry is a disciplined process by which individuals move from knowledge of concrete data to the formulation of abstract concepts. Television can serve the needs of inquiry, especially visual (as opposed to verbal) inquiry, if it can be made flexible enough to bring data into the classroom at the instant needed for making decisions or asking…