The extent to which an orienting activity exerts control over the encoding process was studied. Two experiments were reported in which associative meaningfulness was varied under conditions of semantic and nonsemantic processing. Both experiments showed effects of meaningfulness following both semantic and nonsemantic tasks. (Author/MH)

An expectancy hypothesis of the psychological refractory period (PRP) was tested as an alternative to an arousal hypothesis to explain retarded persons' longer reaction times, using 24 retarded adolescents, 24 nonretarded adolescents matched for chronological age, and 24 nonretarded children matched for mental age (MA). (Author)

This study investigates performance differences between reflective and impulsive subjects on a recognition memory task. Results indicate that verbal recognition memory is sensitive to both cognitive style and presentation mode. (JMF)

The Subject-Verb-Object (S-V-O) approach to social cognition was used to study some traditional balance theory problems and several additional problems as well. (Editor)

If intentional forgetting is to be understood, research must focus on the specification of exactly how memory search and decision processes are altered when a subject is instructed to forget. This research addresses that problem. (Author/RK)

It is a common assumption that memories consist of sets of interrelated features of attributes. Rigorous and direct investigation of the functional properties of these sets has been relatively neglected. Questions whether the interrelationships of different components are reflexive or asymmetric and how components interact when more than one is…

A total of 120 children (aged 5, 9 and 11 years old) performed a spatial recall task utilizing either visual or auditory items. Results showed that visual recall was significantly superior to auditory recall at all age levels and all serial positions regardless of cue modality. (Author/JMB)

The role of differential rehearsal opportunity in the free recall of remember- (R) and forget- (F) cued words was investigated as a function of the method of presentation. (Editor)

A study of 14 children with autism, 14 with mental retardation, and 14 typical children found the children with autism performed equally well as the others at interpreting social situations when only one social cue was present, but performed significantly worse than the others when multiple cues were present. (Author/CR)

Two experiments (n=41 and n=166), one in listening and one in reading, examined the relationships among signaling (structural cues), notetaking, and field dependence-independence in college students. Field-independent subjects seemed to use a tacit structure strategy, whereas field-dependent subjects seemed to display structuring skills when…

Compared male and female four-year-olds' performance on a kinesthetic acuity test (KAT) with or without extra visual-spatial cues and on a measure of visual-spatial ability. Found that all children performed better on the KAT with extra cues and that boys scored higher on visual-spatial ability and performed better on the KAT only with extra cues.…

Concerned the effects of questions about word meaning during an immediate lexical learning task. English-speaking learners of Spanish as a second language attempted to learn 24 new Spanish words while viewing word-picture pairs. Results indicated significantly greater cued-recall scores in the no questions condition than in the questions…

Effects of type of prompt on the use of external strategies were examined with 272 children (ages 7-17) with or without mental retardation. A task requiring memory for object placement was performed under one of four conditions: no prompt, verbal prompt, physical prompt, verbal and physical prompt. Results suggested that strategy use by older…

A cross-modal priming task was used to investigate the role that a word's imageability and its form class play on the time-course with which word meanings are activated. Presents visual target words for lexical decision at different points through the duration of spoken primes. (Author/VWL)

Investigates whether it may still be possible to develop a word association test for assessing proficiency in a foreign language. A multiple-response word association test was constructed with careful consideration of prompt words as defining criterion. The test was administered to learners, and scores were correlated with C-test scores. Results…