The study utilized the Stroop Color-Word Interference Test to assess automatic-effortful processing in 47 mentally retarded subjects and 29 college students. The study found failure of control (effortful) processing needed to suppress automatic responses and greater persistence of no longer adaptive automatized responses in the retarded subjects.…

Evaluated was the continuous recognition memory of 20 undergraduate students and 20 retarded adults. Available from: Ablex Publishing Corporation, 355 Chestnut Street, Norwood, New Jersey 07648. (CL)

A reevaluation of a number of experiments suggests that normal and retarded persons differ on short-term memory tasks from the time of initial stimulus exposure. The hypothesis that memory differences are due to differential encoding as a result of more adequate rehearsal by the normal subjects is unacceptable. (Author/BW)

Individual differences in memory were examined from the levels of processing perspective. The hypothesis that retarded persons process at a more superficial level was not supported. A "Spread of encoding" deficit in retarded persons is favored to explain the recall differences obtained in this experiment. (Author/LMO)

Two studies examined the relationship between cognitive rigidity and cognitive inertia, with a total of 52 children and adults with mental retardation and 50 nonretarded individuals. Findings provide some support for the theory that there are age-related inherent structural differences leading to greater rigidity in older adults. (DB)

Forty young adults with mental retardation (MR) were compared to 40 young adults without mental retardation in tests examining postpractice interference effects in naming colors of Stroop words. The study concluded that practice developed automatized reading suppression responses which held greater cognitive inertia for longer periods among MR…

Ninety-six mildly mentally retarded persons and 96 nonretarded college students estimated the frequency of occurrence of words and pictures in a study test paradigm. Frequency estimates were equal for words, but the nonretarded subjects were superior in accuracy on pictorial items. This finding points to an encoding deficiency attributed to…

A novelty preference method was used to examine memory processes in retarded persons. Recognition memory as indexed by novel looking declined over the retention interval. Since memory is being inferred from response preferences which reflect an induced motivational state, satiation, the relationship between this state and memory must be…

Brain-injured (N=24), cultural-familially retarded (N=24), and nonretarded (N=28) adolescents and young adults were compared on a letter priming task requiring recognition of matched pairs. Response time in both retarded groups was considerably slower than in the nonretarded group, and effortful processing was also slower to develop. (JW)

Retarded and nonretarded persons were compared on a task designed to preclude the use of cognitive strategies. Results suggest the possible importance of automatic processing deficiencies and invite a reconsideration of the idea that the relationship between intelligence and memory is due entirely to effortful processes. (LMO)