The effect of test-wise behavior on mental ability and achievement test performance was investigated. When test-wise and test-naive college students were instructed in test-taking skills, both groups demonstrated significant gains in test wiseness. While instruction did not affect test performance, the test-wise subjects performed more…

The paradigm producing recognition failure of recallable words was investigated in a series of three experiments. Results indicate that retrieval asymmetry: (a) exists in the recognition failure paradigm directly following list study, (b) increases significantly following a free-association task aimed at generation of the target words from the…

An experiment examined the mnemonic effects of initial testing with semantic, orthographic, temporal, and recognition cues. Results were interpreted within a levels-of-processing framework in which the nature of the information used in retrieval, rather than the speed or difficulty of retrieval determines subsequent accessibility. (Editor/RK)

Data from this study indicate that, with time held constant, underlining is of limited value and may only manipulate which parts of a passage may be learned at the expense of other parts. (HOD)

Ninety six kindergarten age children participated in a study which assessed the effects of three procedural factors on performance in identity and equivalence conservation tasks. (SB)

Discusses the effectiveness of using prompting in computer assisted instruction and time delay fading of such prompts to teach new skills to students who have difficulty learning by traditional methods. A CAI tutorial program which uses these techniques to teach time-telling skills is described. (MBR)

Two experiments were conducted examining the effects of partial picture adjuncts on young children's coding of information implied in sentences. Developmental differences were found in whether (l) partial pictures facilitated inferencing and (2) pictures containing information not explicitly stated in sentences promoted cue recall of the…

The article outlines an approach to memory remediation that attempts to teach memory-impaired patients domain-specific knowledge relevant to their everyday functioning. Studies support the use of a training technique, the method of vanishing cues, in the successful generalization to the workplace of knowledge acquired in the laboratory. (DB)

Assesses individuals' fear and enjoyment reactions to horror films, applying theories of cognition and affect that predict emotional responses to a stimulus on the basis of prior affect toward specific cues included in that stimulus. (MM)

The ability of 40 children four and five years of age to discriminate reflections and rotations of visual stimuli was examined in a kinetic imagery task. Results revealed that prediction accuracy was associated with the existence of orientation markers on the stimuli, as well as age, sex, type of discrimination, and several interactions among the…

Presents five experiments that examine the ability of first graders, fourth graders, and adults to make causal inferences that explain how an unexpected and inconsistent "outcome" follows from an initial premise in a story. Results indicate that referential and causal coherence are empirically separable and should be distinguished…

The effects of number signals on text recall were investigated using college-age subjects who read and recalled two texts containing 10 target sentences each. Results demonstrated that number signals directed attention to the sentences they marked, led to better encoding of target information, and influenced the process recall. (Author/LMO)

Investigated: (1) "potent" testing cues that were identified by high-test-anxious (HTA) and low-test-anxious (LTA) undergraduate students (N=133); (2) differences between HTA (N=93) and LTA (N=40) students for frequencies and intensities of responses to testing cues; and (3) differences between HTA and LTA students for attentional…

Nine poor spellers (8-13 years old) received four alternating experimental treatments during a 16-week spelling program. Results indicated that student-directed instruction that incorporated visual and verbal cues was most effective in increasing children's spelling accuracy. (Author/CL)