Two studies of children and adults investigated responses to a weight illusion task based on perceptual adaptation or contrast effects. Results showed improved performance only after the task was altered to highlight the relevance of the condition that produced the illusion. (RH)

A semantic or a phonetic cue was given when necessary in an object-naming task involving 30 first grade children. Although the children who were poor readers named fewer objects than good readers, both groups of children benefited from phonetic cues. In contrast, semantic cues had relatively little effect. (Author/JDD)

Describes study of undergraduates that investigated social influence in the group process by examining how the exclusion of contextual cues provided by face to face interaction influences individual judgments in computer mediated conferencing (CMC). Asch's social influence experiment is reviewed, and further research needs are suggested. (23…

Investigates a strategy for giving an opinion by first soliciting another party's opinion and then producing one's own report in a way that takes the other's into account. Concludes that the strategy of using a perspective-display sequence is pertinent to situations where cautiousness in giving reports and opinions seems warranted. (MS)

Motor skills acquisition in elementary children is facilitated when the cognitive processes of selective attention and rehearsal are applied. Teaching techniques which promote development of these processes include use of verbal cues, mental and verbal rehearsal, questioning, and recall through testing. Sample verbal cues for selected motor skills…

Examines the effects of repeated readings and attentional cues on measures of reading fluency and comprehension. Suggests that increasing fluency is a less efficient means of improving comprehension than presenting cues about comprehension. (MM)

Advances two processes describing the relationship between message behaviors and narrative comprehension that differ in the likelihood that specific interpretations will be drawn given the presence of message cues. Finds that, in general, cues biased young children toward drawing a particular representation but that fifth graders delayed choosing…

Two studies demonstrated that infants use referential cues to guide new word-object mapping as early as 19 to 20 months of age and that they understood that actions accompanying such labeling were not necessarily referential. These findings indicate that language learning is grounded in a relatively rich understanding of cues to reference, at…

Two experiments are described that confirmed previous contentions that there is an imperfect correspondence between subjects' pause reports and actual pauses in oral reading and that auditory cues represent only part of the picture. Semantic and linguistic cues also appear to have substantial effect on the accuracy of pause reports. (13…

Surveyed 100 older adults to determine kinds of memorabilia and cherished objects they would identify and how these were related to reminiscence and current mood as measured by Affect-Balance Scale. Found significant positive relationship between memorabilia and mood; total lack of cherished objects was associated with significantly lower mood…

Study examined ability of attention deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD) children with and without learning disability to perceive nonverbal social cues. ADHD/LD children demonstrated significant difficulty in comparison to their peers in effectively perceiving paralanguage cues. This group also showed significant improvement on the Postures and…

Three experiments examined infants' processing of three-dimensional (3D) information in static images. Results indicated that 3-month olds are sensitive to 3D cues in static images. However, discrepancies based on these cues may not engage infants' attention like those based on fundamental features. (Author)

Six experiments involving a total of 112 college students demonstrate that a robust memory for visual context exists to guide spatial attention. Results show how implicit learning and memory of visual context can guide spatial attention toward task-relevant aspects of a scene. (SLD)

Reinvestigated claim that beginning readers exploit information from orthographic rime of clue words to help them decode unfamiliar words. Among the findings: children were able to use orthographic information from beginning, middle, and end of clue words to identify unfamiliar words, with clue word presentation enhancing the reading of…

This study investigated the effects of contextualization on fluency in 35 school-age children with either stuttering, language impairment, or normal fluency. Analysis of the children's discourse samples, half of which were produced with contextual cues, found stutterers demonstrated a significant reduction in frequency of stuttering in the…