The ADAPT program for freshmen emphasizes building an experiential base in introductory courses before moving to abstract formulations. The goal is to develop thinking processes that are integrated with the student's experiences. Students in the ADAPT program outperformed two comparison groups on a variety of thinking tasks. (Author)

While reading a passage, college students expecting an essay examination took notes on sentences of higher structural importance than those anticipating a multiple choice test. Note taking seemed to serve as both an encoding device and as an external storage mechanism, with the latter being the more important function. (Author/BW)

Spatial egocentrism and its relationships to discrimination ability and communicative egocentrism were investigated in a sample of 80 adult males from a single institutional setting. Significant effects of order of task presentation indicated that the experimental procedure influenced performance on the spatial and communicative egocentrism and…

Presents a reply to and an analysis of a study which examined the use of logograph research to determine children's cognitive integration ability. The study in question had been based on the present author's previous research. (BD)

Reviews studies of eye movements in reading and other information processing skills such as picture viewing, visual search, and problem solving. (BD)

Two experiments, a shadowing task and a mispronunciation-detection task, were performed to investigate the interactions between the data-driven primary speech perception process and the knowledge-driven word recognition process in the comprehension of continuous speech. Results are applied to an active direct access model of word recognition.…

Ten nursery school children who knew how to count but were unacquainted with arithmetic were taught a simple algorithm for solving single-digit addition problems and were then given extended practice. The reaction time on the final block of extended practice suggested that subjects had invented a more efficient procedure to replace the original…

Children and undergraduate students were studied to expose "structure-neutral" interpretations of logical propositions involving universal affirmatives. Successes with true and false questions and with four different syllogistic forms having three content types were compared. Age-related differences in performance were discussed with…

Despite differences in origin and orientation, Piagetian theory and criterion referenced measurement share a general purpose--that of diagnosing human behavior. Beginning with a review of both perspectives, this paper illustrates their highly comparable natures and indicates how they could be used together to improve student evaluation. (Author/…

Two experiments investigated the effects of four teaching treatments on sixth graders' learning of an ecology curriculum. Recitation was more significant in improving learning than the other treatments--probing or followup questioning; redirection of a question to another student; and higher cognitive questioning. (Author/CP)

College students learned artificial grammar under two conditions: paired associate learning (PA), and observation of exemplars (OBS). OBS induced abstract representation of the rules of grammar. PA produced very different learning--subjects knew some whole items but detected little structure. Grammar was learned largely by analogy rather than…

The author analyzes some recent developments in the debate over the status of mental imagery. He attempts to specify what a propositional theory is, and considers arguments for and against the imagery position, i.e., whether visual imagery is encoded in terms of properties that are quite spatial and modality specific. (Author/RK)

"A lot of what passes for thinking in schools is simply fluent talking." So says Edward de Bono, author of several books on thinking, and developer of Cognitive Research Trust (CoRT), who thinks children can and should be taught "thinking skills." (Editor/RK)

Evaluates the Nuffield Combined Science program in terms of the Piagetian developmental levels required for successful achievement in the various program divisions. (CP)

Reports on the administration of a biology cognitive preference test to 177 science-oriented high school students. Subjects were asked to rank responses or "extension statements" to items according to their preference. It was found that the high-ability students as a group had a very high preference for questioning and low preference for recall.…