An experiment tested the hypothesis that the memory representation of a text is a hierarchical structure in which information is ordered from most important to least important. Sentences that tested topic information were verified faster and more accurately than sentences that tested detail information. (Author/RM)

Encoding and retrieval of temporal and spatial order information was investigated in the free recall and probed recognition performance of 3-, 4-, 5-. and 6-year-old children. (SB)

The sustained attention of 23 young adults with mild mental retardation and nonretarded subjects was assessed. Findings suggested that the sustained attention of the retarded differs from that of the nonretarded on those vigilance tasks that place demands on memory abilities. (Author/DB)

Reviews research on cognitive styles and offers a model for integrating them into an information processing model of cognition. Maintains that the model will promote further research and practice by offering an efficient way of conceptualizing relationships among cognitive styles and intellectual processes. (BSR)

Concludes that strategies are not responsible for memory span development in children 7 through 13 years old. Running and fixed memory span tasks and a running probe task were administered to 38 children. The probe task showed age differences as great as with the fixed span task. Span was reduced by approximately half an item over all ages.…

Summarizes results from a series of psychological experiments about how people process information from television and discusses the results in relation to six issues, including size of stimulus units and complexity of television stimuli. (DF)

Examines the phenomena of isolation and adaptation in the context of two recognition experiments investigating retroactive interference. Results suggest a framework for predicting errors and accuracies in passage memory based on integrative processing. (DF)

This study examines whether residual recall differences between reading ability groups after a memory training task reflect the dimensions of organizational processing. Although age-related effects occurred, no ability group effects emerged, suggesting that learning disabled readers adequately access word features except when organized by…

The structure of conceptual interrelationships in a group of college students was assessed and intervention techniques to alter the conceptual structure were designed and implemented. A technique reducing the number of concepts identified for alteration and requiring students to compare concepts produced a substantial shift in students' concept…

Corrects errors in "A Developmental Study of Learning Disabilities and Memory" by Stephen J. Ceci (Volume 38, Number 2 1984), pages 352-371. (AS)

Suggests that a factor underlying the complex analysis of prose is amount of elaboration. Reports findings of two experiments supporting this idea. (FL)

This study examines the utility of an elaboration hypothesis as a means of predicting the recall of major ideas from text through the manipulation of paragraphs and via the use of inserted questions requiring different levels of elaboration. (PN)

Two studies investigated (1) the ability of learning disabled children to perform tasks that specifically demand the recognition and production of main-idea statements, and (2) their ability to detect an inappropriate sentence in a paragraph. (PN)

Reports on a study designed to show that Tulving's theory of encoding specificity and Bahrick's theory of associative continuity are not contradictory, rather complementary. (CLK)

This article describes an experiment which explores the relationship between the interval between the two occurrences of the repeated item to be recalled and the memory for the repeated item, and argues that both spacing and lag effects are dependent upon factors associated with study-phase retrieval. (CLK)