Explored the relationship between three personality traits in older adults and improvement in face-name recall after three types of intervention. Results showed improvement in recall after intervention; a correlation between the openness trait and recall with all interventions; and a correlation between the fantasy subfactor trait and recall with…

This study evaluated the recognition and retention of transparent and nontransparent manual signs by 50 sign-naive hearing college freshmen. There was a significant decrease in the number of nontransparent signs retained as the period of time after training increased. Implications for sign language training with nonverbal hearing persons are…

Reviews major research conducted between 1984 and 1989 on test anxiety among college, concluding that test anxiety may result from long-term memory problems. Explores techniques for reducing test anxiety, assessing the relative validity of each. Proposes a holistic approach to reducing test anxiety that addresses cognitive and emotional…

In 2 studies, 374 undergraduate students gave retrospective reports of their favorite games, toys, hobbies, and sports in elementary school, high school, and college. Results show that sex similarities and differences vary as a function of kind of play. Implications of sex differences for socialization and moral reasoning are discussed. (SLD)

Investigated whether children's ability to recognize themselves in delayed video feedback indicates change in self awareness. Parallel results in both conditions studied, and the likelihood of false positives and false negatives indicate that the video test in its present form may not be a valid measure of differences in self-awareness. (Author)

Summarizes research findings that challenge long-standing theories of infant cognition and motor development and proposes alternative theoretical models to describe skill acquisition during the first several years of life. Findings are discussed with respect to research in the area of infant speech physiology and production. (Author/CR)

Examined the effects of phonological memory and native-language (NL) literacy acquisition on learning English as a foreign language. Subjects were Finnish first graders, who were age 7 at the beginning of the study. Results suggest NL literacy is highly significant for foreign-language learning and that one way to promote foreign-language learning…

A study involving 11 boys (ages 6-12) with high-functioning autism and 11 boys with moderate-functioning autism examined memory strategy use on a serial recall task and a recall readiness task. Significant spontaneous strategy use was found on both tasks, particularly among the high-functioning group, although still lower than typical controls.…

A study involving 16 Japanese young men (half with deafness) and 16 Irish young men (half with deafness) found that the Japanese men who were deaf outscored their English-language counterparts in memory for abstract design, due to prolonged use of a highly visual writing system. (Contains references.) (Author/CR)

Provides a series of simple mnemonic exercises for memorizing terminology related to the central nervous system. The exercise chooses a keyword for a set of specific functions ("medal" for "medulla") and then constructs an imaginary situation, expressed in one or two sentences, illustrating some of those functions. (MJP)

Describes the Novice-Expert (Novex) Analysis, a nine-step approach to instructional design aimed at effecting the shift from novice to expert by creating a series of learning activities to enable novices to construct an expert knowledge base. The "Dimensions of Processing Model" diagram illustrates how learning processes influence…

A new regression-based logic strategy is presented for comparing cognitive profiles of children developing reading skills at different rates. Results with 907 children support the phonological-core variable-difference model of reading disability, with the degree of aptitude-achievement discrepancy unrelated to unique cognitive trade-offs of…

This study investigated the validity of 3 curriculum-based measures for predicting the performance of 184 secondary students (including 13 with mild disabilities) on content-area tasks. Reliable correlations were found between oral reading, maze, and vocabulary measures; and students' performance on comprehension, acquisition, and retention of…

A 3-factor solution of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale--Revised (WAIS-R) in 260 adults with suspected head injury suggested relatively good construct validity for the factors, based on correlations with neuropsychological tests. Findings are discussed in terms of the multidimensional nature of neuropsychological tests and WAIS-R factors.…

Used cross-sectional life span data from normative sample for Woodcock-Johnson Psycho-Educational Battery to examine independence of age-related cognitive changes in childhood and adulthood. Found that majority of age-related differences were shared across different cognitive variables and were well predicted by individual differences in…