Research supported in part by University of California Grant 2189 and in part by United States Public Health Service Grant MH-13509

This investigation of the effect of making a set of alternatives conform grammatically to a test item stem showed there is subject sensitivity to such cues. Content-free versions of American College Testing Assessment Experimental Social Science items representing singular-plural and vowel-consonant agreement without inappropriate grammatical…

This paper presents a developmental study of the effects of item rehearsal on children's short term memory. Two experiments are discussed. The first, involving second and sixth grade children, concerned the relationship between item retrieval ability and rehearsal strategies in item recall. The design of the experiment involved varying the visual…

An experiment tested the hypothesis that the outcome of a vocal nonverbal persuasion attempt can be affected by the participants' skills in nonverbal communication. Subjects' vocal sending or decoding abilities were pretested. Senders and decoders (N=54) were agents and recipients of social influence, respectively, in a field experiment in which…

Sex differences in influencability have emerged when discrepant advocacies were accompanied by greater expertise in the subject matter by men or women. Two types of stimuli, one about which men relative to women had high prior knowledge (football tackles) and one about which women had higher prior knowledge (women's fashions), were selected. Men…

This study used the behavioral contrast paradigm to assess the excitatory and inhibitory capabilities of young infants. Behavioral contrast is described as the phenomenon whereby the rates of responding in the presence of two stimuli, both of which were previously associated with reinforcement, change in opposite directions when only one of them…

To develop a coherent description of the knowledge and processes involved in skillful word recognition, a study was devised in which 16 adults participated in four related experiments. The purpose of the first experiment was to examine some basic aspects of the processing of words, pseudowords, and nonwords and to discover basic differences in…

The PLATO Elementary Reading Curriculum (PERC) requires the use of two interactive PLATO terminals in each classroom, and each unit uses a random access audio device which is connected directly to the terminal. Messages from the command unit can direct the audio unit to deliver verbal instructions to the student user at the terminal. The PERC…

One of the twelve exemplary programs summarized in the Introduction to Right to Read's "Effective Reading Programs: Summaries of 222 Selected Programs" (CS001934), this program attempts to raise the reading skills of inmates of the Sierra Conservation Center to the level needed for training in conservation work while in prison, or for…

The purpose of this study was to determine the predicted differences in the effectiveness of social approval and disapproval cues. Three hypotheses were tested to determine what the effect on communication is if the source of the cue is a peer, family member, or society and what the response will be when a message advocates a position discrepant…

A total of 72 kindergarteners received eight conservation of number trials which varied in the degree of perceptual support for one-to-one correspondence (four levels) and type of stimuli (toy animals or corks). A between-subjects variable was the method of presentation (standard conservation presentation, a partially fixed array, or a fixed…

Sixty kindergarten, 60 second-grade, and 60 fourth-grade students performed several memory tasks under one of six conditions. The conditions differed as to the method of presentation of information. The study was focused on developmental changes in children's use of verbal, nonverbal, and spatial-positional cues for memory. The results, in…

Two concepts predominate in studies of spatial invasion: territoriality (personalization and defense of a fixed spatial area) and personal space (a portable area surrounding the individual, which is responsive to environmental change). Spatial invasions were carried out by occupying a marked seat (invade condition), and adjacent seat (adjacent…

Three experiments are reported investigating the relationship between response recall and the spacing of repetitions as a function of the retention interval. The results of the experiments support the theory which emphasizes the nature of the cues available for retrieval. (Author/RM)