Presents several reconceptualizations of adult cognitive development and its relation to everyday problem solving. Argues that investigation of relations between adult cognitive development and everyday problem solving may be facilitated through causal modeling that includes task characteristics, social context, and personality and motivational…

A total of 60 first- and third-grade children were divided into three treatment groups receiving task-specific strategy instructions and/or metacognitive training. Results were discussed in terms of the interactive nature of knowledge, process, and motivational variables as determinants of strategy transfer. (Author/CI)

Differences in discourse type were expected to result in differences in processing text. The more organized discourse types of comparison, problem/solution, and causation were predicted to yield superior recall of information than a collection of descriptions about a topic. Results from two studies supported this prediction. (Author/BW)

The effects of memory load (simultaneous or successive presentation), number of trials (two or three), and type of information (positive, negative, or mixed) upon inference task performance of 168 five-year-old children were examined. (Author/JH)

Discusses the close interrelationships between the various cognitive functions of the brain and the possibility of improving memory through the use of mnemonic devices. Bibliography. (LC)

A review of Cognition and Affect (Little, Brown, 1970) John S. Antrobus, Editor. (CK)

Presents experiments which compare two theories of memory for routine events, one emphasizing temporal sequence of events, the other focusing on events' hierarchical structure or centrality. Findings suggest that sequence and centrality information may be computed as needed, rather than precompiled. (Author/BK)

Reviews and synthesizes, within the broad framework of comparative cognition, several approaches to the study of human memory, including ontogenetic, cultural/sociohistorical, and clinical research. Asserts that future research on comparative memory development must focus on the flexible and adaptive use of memory skills to meet purposes…

Argues that the distinction between short-term memory and long-term memory is no longer adequate for either human or animal memory data. Recommends additional research on the physiological brain processes underlying memory interference and retrieval. (MP)

Early and late formal-operational adolescents having similar ages and IQs were presented tasks to assess their use of organizational memory strategies: multitrial free recall of unrelated and categorized words and a sorting task followed by free recall of the sorted words. (Author/SS)

Results of three studies suggest that, to notice inconsistencies in prose, children have to encode and store information, draw relevant inferences, retrieve and maintain inferred propositions in working memory, and compare them. Third through sixth graders do not spontaneously carry out those processes that they are capable of carrying out. (JMB)

Decisions about whether pairs of letter strings are both words or not are faster for semantically related words than unrelated words. Two experiments showed the semantic relatedness effect is greatly reduced when orthographically illegal, unpronounceable strings were used as negative items. Lexical decisions involve options on codes representing…

Two studies explored the following two issues important in understanding the development of knowledge-based inferencing: (1) how children of different ages use a circumscribed and available knowledge base to make two types of inferences important for comprehension; and (2) how the accessibility of an available knowledge base is related to…