Describes a new paradigm that may be appropriate for uncovering speech perceptual codes. Illusory words are detected by blending two dichotic stimuli. The paradigm's design allows for comparison of different speech units by the manipulation of the distribution of information between two inputs. (23 references) (Author/CK)

Three studies investigated 3-year-olds' comprehension of indirectly and directly learned words after a 2-day delay. Found indirectly and directly learned proper and common names resulted in proper name mappings that picked out individual and common name mappings that could be extended to another category member. When additional, sometimes…

Elaborates upon the assertion that composition studies is potentially a postdisciplinary inquiry which sometimes requires teachers to call upon knowledge from various disciplines to convey ideas to students. Identifies "narrative knowledge" as the kinds of tacit awareness that comes to writing teachers as a consequence of their work. (SG)

Reports on two studies on the dynamic relationships among parts of a thought system. The first study examines the effects of changes in the desirability or likelihood of a core event on thoughts about antecedents and consequences; the second examines the effects of changes in the antecedents and consequences on the core thought. (FMW)

Solution of production or recognition format analogies requires identification of either the inference or mapping relation, but not both as postulated in Sternberg's theory. Additional findings concerning analogical reasoning processes, and a discussion of teaching implications, are included in this description of a study involving 41 eighth…

Six community workers' interviews were subjected to vocabulary scanning; factorial analysis graphics plotted words most frequently used. The workers' world views and understanding of social change emerged. One group favored local development, planned change, a facilitator role, and collaboration. The other preferred a social action model of…

Ten sighted adults were blindfolded and asked to find four objects in the open space of a room. A perimeter pattern, a gridlike search pattern, and a reference-point strategy were variably effective, indicating that different kinds of experience may result in different kinds of knowledge that are optimal for different spatial judgment tasks.…

Kindergartners and second graders heard stories containing an intention to solve a problem and a successful outcome or stories that lacked these components. Second graders showed evidence of transfer of knowledge for stories containing an intentional component. (BC)

Two experiments explored the tendency of preschoolers to map novel nouns and verbs onto unfamiliar rather than familiar objects or actions. This disambiguation effect has been interpreted as evidence that youngsters expect object or action labels to be mutually exclusive. The effect was stronger for object than for action words. (MDM)

Presents the case for a mapping theory of developmental language impairment, which branches into a theory that specific language impairment arises from impaired phonological processing and the consequent disruption of the mapping process through which the words and sentence structure of language are established. (Author/VWL)

Notes young children's fast mapping ability for word and fact learning. Finds children's extension of a new word to novel objects from same category but lack of extension for new facts, as replicated by Waxman and Booth, unsurprising. Poses more interesting question: is word learning done solely through more general cognitive systems or through…

Comparison for memory for spatial location of 30 persons with and 30 persons without mental retardation found the control group recalled more intentionally learned than incidentally learned locations. The experimental group performed better after incidental learning than after intentional learning and scored as highly as controls on incidental…

Proposes an account of linking patterns that does away with intermediary mechanisms such as thematic or actor/undergoer hierarchies. Shows that the generalizations a linking theory needs to capture can be modeled via the same mechanisms as other lexical generalizations, using conditions specified within the hierarchy of word classes. (Author/VWL)

Wernicke (1900, as cited in G. H. Eggert, 1977) suggested that semantic knowledge arises from the interaction of perceptual representations of objects and words. The authors present a parallel distributed processing implementation of this theory, in which semantic representations emerge from mechanisms that acquire the mappings between visual…

There is now evidence to suggest that the degree to which hypertext or web-based instructional systems facilitate recall of information appears to be contingent on an individual's cognitive or information processing style. Concept maps also reflect the way in which individuals process information and therefore it is possible that cognitive style…