The reversal of subject and predicate terms in quantified, categorical expressions was studied as an operation that is potentially important in issues of representation and comprehension of quantified relations. In two experiments students were asked to evaluate the relation between two quantified expressions. The salience of reversal in the…

Relational-inference, a process associated with developmental change in performance on classification items, was investigated in two experiments. The accuracy and latency with which 20 subjects at each of 3 age levels (8, 11, and adult) stated relationships among concepts were tested. In experiment 1, 40 triplets of concepts related by a class…

The linguistic form of a nonliteral expression, and the context in which it occurs, can greatly influence young children's succcess or failure in assigning a meaning to a figurative expression. Experiments have shown that the same metaphorical expression can be easier to understand when expressed in a linguistic form that is familiar to young…

To test F. J. Morrison's conceptualization of reading disability as the failure to master the complex irregular system of rules governing sound-symbol correspondence in English (1980), a study investigated the speed with which disabled and normal readers processed short vowels, long vowels, and vowel digraphs. Subjects consisted of two groups of…

The study examined the encoding function in student note taking in relationship to learning from a university lecture. It was expected that note taking effectiveness would be positively related to learning; and, that the notes of high and low effective note takers would differ significantly. After pretesting, a 551-word lecture on research methods…

This essay, the concluding section of a larger study, examines the present state of cognitive science and instructional theory as reflected in the study's earlier chapters. Cognitive analyses of tasks are reported in the broad domain of language comprehension and production (e.g., understanding, composing, and answering questions about texts). The…

This study concerns a moment in the learning process which is considered crucial, namely, that point when the learner is confronted with the necessity of discovering from the models already learned and stored in memory elements that will be useful in constructing a new utterance or solving a new problem. The emphasis is on the point of connection…

This handbook provides an introduction to research findings related to bilingualism in minority-language children, and describes the implications of these findings for issues of current concern in Canadian education. Bilingualism is defined as the production and/or comprehension of two languages by the same individual. The phrase…

Research in secondary school composition instruction indicates that (1) emphasis on writing for the teacher-as-examiner is prevalent, (2) prewriting activities are limited, (3) there is little discussion of approaches to the topic or what information should be included, and (4) activities to help students while they are writing are almost…

Previous research has shown a similar starting time for early combinations of words and play actions in children and has suggested that similar cognitive processes underlie the transition to combining activities in language, symbolic play, and manipulative play. A study was undertaken to investigate combining activities in these three domains and…

A study investigated the degree to which elementary school reading teachers understood the reading process. Thirty teachers were asked to respond to four questions: (1) Have you ever thought about what you do when you read? (2) Have you ever thought about how meaning is represented in written language? (3) When you are reading, what do you do when…

Dutch children (ten five year olds and ten seven year olds) were asked to repeat two-clause sentences that varied in internal semantic cohesiveness. Results showed that semantic factors were primary in determining the five year olds' performance, while seven year olds, though possibly not insensitive to semantic variables, were retaining syntactic…

The ways in which preschoolers use the word "but" were studied. It was found that the eight preschoolers, who ranged in age from 3;9 to 5;5, were able to use "but" to express a number of different types of adversative relationships. "But" introduced clauses containing information that: (1) contrasted with shared knowledge about the usual state of…

Thirty college undergraduates participated in a study of the effects of acoustic and visual interference on the recall of word and picture triads in both short-term and long-term memory. The subjects were presented 24 triads of monosyllabic nouns representing all of the possible combinations of presentation types: pictures, printed words, and…

The temporal patterning of speech, primarily within the context of interpersonal exchanges, is traced in this cross-section of research exploring the major directions such studies have taken. Eighteen authors contributed selections to support the thesis that time as a dimension of speech reflects many of the important processes that occur during…