In the development of their semantic networks, bilinguals can be influenced by the levels of proficiency they have in their second language (L2) and by the age at which they acquired the language. Two exercises, one in word association and one in forced-choice decision-making, were used to test whether the pattern of relative awareness of thematic…

Words become associated following repeated co-occurrence episodes. This process might be further determined by the semantic characteristics of the words. The present study focused on how semantic and episodic factors interact in incidental formation of word associations. First, we found that human participants associate semantically related words…

The factors underlying memory performance in learning are shown to be affected by strategic processing and by automatic processing. Strategic processing is under the conscious control and effort of the learner while automatic processing is dependent on the strength of associations between new concepts and known concepts in a given domain.…

Two experiments examined whether associating an imitation task with an operant task affected 6-month-olds' memory for either task. Results indicated that infants successfully imitated a puppet's action for up to 2 weeks only if the associated operant task (pressing a lever to activate a miniature train) was retrieved first. Follow-up study…

A study was conducted to test the hypothesis that high-variability rehearsal more effectively facilitates word recall than does low-variability rehearsal. Third-grade and sixth-grade students were asked to memorize a list of 20 common words. A read-aloud rehearsal procedure was used so that rehearsal could be experimentally controlled. One word…

This paper discusses questions pertinent to a definition of cognitive structure as the knowledge one possesses and the manner in which it is arranged, and considers how to select or devise methods of describing cognitive structure. The main purpose in describing cognitive structure is to see whether differences in memory (or cognitive structure)…

When 64 college students were randomly assigned to one of four self-concept treatment conditions and given a paired-associate learning task, the mean task performances for the raised self-concept, therapeutically lowered self-concept, and control groups were equal to one another but superior to the performance of the counter-therapeutically…