To make text attractive to readers, writers may add supporting information. In texts of the characteristic topic type, this information may include narrative accounts, questions to the reader, and the use of examples. The use of narrative accounts and examples may confuse the reader. Awareness of topic type may help overcome some of these…

Discusses the historical background of Bloom's Taxonomy. Asserts that the Taxonomy contains elements of sex bias. Describes Women's Ways of knowing along with a comparison of the perspectives and implications of both approaches. (CFR)

Contrasts interpretive and cognitive approaches to explaining teachers' thoughts and actions, exploring epistemological and ontological assumptions that underlie research on teaching. Cognition is discussed as individual mental processing versus a social event in which thinking is shared, intersubjective, and practical. The influence of the place…

This article reviews developmental and neuropsychological evidence of differences between modes of processing small-scale and large-scale spatial information, and discusses implications for teaching students with visual impairments. Understanding of developmental processes is felt to be the key to diagnosing and treating orientation and mobility…

Individual differences in children's conceptual strategies at 3 years of age were predicted by aspects of children's behavior and language at 13 and 24 months. Production of pointing gestures at 13 months and nouns and attributive adjectives at 24 months were positively associated with the use of a taxonomic matching strategy at 3 years of age.…

Results from 627 examinees taking a health sciences certification examination suggest that test items written purposefully to assess higher order cognitive skills do not provide evidence of assessing different levels of cognitive processing. Results do not support continuing use of a hierarchical cognitive classification dimension for the test…

Intelligence-related differences in perceptual processing in a global/local task were studied for 19 mentally retarded high school students and 19 nonretarded college students. Both groups processed global information faster than local information, and local naming practice caused increases in local processing time. (SLD)

Thirty-six elementary school students repeated short meaningful, long meaningful, and long nonce utterances in response to a visual cue. Nonstuttering, stuttering only, and stuttering-plus (concomitant speech and/or language problems) children responded differently to utterance length and meaningfulness. Results suggest that the three groups may…

Considered stereotype change within a framework of dual process models. Using three experiments, manipulated task involvement, source credibility, and message quality. Findings proved dual process as appropriate when considering the processing of stereotype-disconfirming information and processing's impact on existing stereotypes. Different…

Presents new evidence that everyday mood does bring about a hypothesized effect on memory, termed mood-congruent memory (MCM). Results of three studies provided evidence for MCM among normal individuals (n=614). Findings support prior studies and bolster notions that mood and memory constantly covary in everyday experience. (RJM)

Using the case of a vernacular variety spoken on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, this article demonstrates how linguistic-systemic principles such as remorphologization, psycholinguistic principles of perceptual saliency, and sociolinguistic processes of symbolic identity converge to account for the development of leveling in this community.…

Two steps in the social information process model were assessed for socially accepted and rejected children by verbal responses to stories embedded in computer games. Attributions of intent and aggressive problem solutions were correlated with contextual factors (interpersonal context, outcome of game, and story type) and with sex and social…

Investigated whether otitis media (OM), middle ear disease, affected toddlers' attention to language. Children were studied during a picture book-reading task at high- or low-quality day-care centers. Children with chronic OM in low-quality care showed the most negative effects on attention during episodes of OM; mothers rated children with…

Outlines principles underlying the theory of polyrepresentation as it applies to user cognitive space and information space of information retrieval (IR) systems. A discussion and diagram illustrate the interactive communication that takes place between users and IR systems in order to complete work tasks such as retrieving full text information.…

Presents a framework within which to organize and synthesize existing knowledge about children's understanding of the mental states of imagination, pretense, and dreams. Concludes that by the age of three, children understand important fundamental aspects of the mental nature, origin, and truth-relation of fictional mental states, but that their…