Sixth graders received music history instruction regarding musical periods and composers over two weeks. They were taught in alternating weeks using either interactive illustrations of mnemonic keywords or realistic line drawing portraits of the composers as recall aids. The mnemonic illustrations produced substantially higher scores on students'…

Brain research explains why testing for surface knowledge (memorization) reveals relatively little about real, usable knowledge. Assessment must contribute to real-world experience, relate to real-world performance, can never be fully translated into representative symbols or numbers, and can induce both helplessness (interference with meaningful…

Focusing on whether computer-based study tasks should use multiple-choice or constructed-response (CR) question formats, this study hypothesized that a CR task with feedback would be superior to multiple-choice study tasks that allowed either single or multiple tries (STF, MTF). As hypothesized, CR scores were larger than MTF and STF scores,…

Reports on two related studies intended to explore the interactions among children's metacognitive abilities, their working memory capacity, the development and selection of strategies, and their performance on problem-solving tasks. Explains that in study 1 children performed a reclassification task, and in study 2 children performed a…

Results of numerous human imaging studies and nonhuman neurophysiological studies on "reward" highlight a role for frontal, striatal, and thalamic regions in operant learning. By integrating operant and functional neuroimaging methodologies, the present investigation examined brain activation to two types of discriminative stimuli correlated with…

The ability to remember visual stimuli over a short delay period is limited by the small capacity of visual working memory (VWM). Here the authors investigate the role of learning in enhancing VWM. Participants saw 2 spatial arrays separated by a 1-s interval. The 2 arrays were identical except for 1 location. Participants had to detect the…

Teaching methods in the 1880s and 1890s were influenced by the energies and publications of the Herbartians from Illinois State Normal University. Memorization was replaced by inductive questioning, field trips and the use of visual aids. Four men and one woman were followed by Douglas Clay Ridgley who built up the geography major and made tools…

Recent research has documented associations between subjective health ratings and objective indicators of disease and death. Less is known about relations between subjective health ratings and level of cognitive performance in older adults. In this study, we explored whether subjective health ratings are related to episodic memory performance,…

Four practical approaches taken by teachers in their attempts to help students acquire the minimum sight vocabulary necessary for reading English for Science and Technology (EST) texts are described. Over a period of 12 weeks, subjects (native Spanish speakers at university level) were divided into 4 intact groups and worked under different…

Unfortunately, many students, are failing to learn history. Fifty-seven percent of high school students scored "below basic understanding" on their knowledge of United States history. Interestingly, less than half of the students were familiar with Patrick Henry, the War of 1812, the Marshall Plan, or the Great Society. Perhaps the time…

Long-term synaptic enhancement in the hippocampus has been suggested to cause deficits in spatial performance. Synaptic enhancement has been reported after hippocampal kindling that induced repeated electrographic seizures or afterdischarges (ADs) and after long-term potentiation (LTP) defined as synaptic enhancement without ADs. We studied…

Based on observations made in Bulgaria in the 1970s, it is proposed that the original version of Suggestopedia for second language training, used in Bulgaria and other Eastern European countries in the late 1960s and early 1970s, differs significantly from the techniques developed later, in particular in concentration on and memorization of…

The hypothesis that free recall curves reflecting effects of serial position, presentation time and delay of recall are attributable to subjects' pattern of rehearsal was explored. Experiments varied the patterns of rehearsal to examine the effects on recall. (CHK)

This study examined how the practice of prepublishing prompts used on the writing section of the Graduate Record Examinations® (GRE®) General Test impacts test-preparation behavior, test performance, test validity, and examinee perceptions of the value of prompt prepublication. Researchers imposed modest experimental control over how participants…

Myth is integral to modern as well as ancient societies in its service to multiple interrelated social functions. Among these are to explain phenomena and direct action, to justify particular interests or practices, to dramatize ideals, and to provide cultural cohesion. Three prevailing myths that are especially problematic are the myths of…