Data indicate that relatively advanced science-oriented college students can experience serious difficulties in symbolizing certain meaningful relationships with algebraic equations. Reversal errors in formulating equations were seen to stem from two main sources: (1) a syntactic word order matching process and (2) a semantic static comparison…

In these choice response keyboard tasks, older subjects detected and corrected their errors as efficiently as the young. Reaction time (RT) for error and error correction responses remained relatively constant with increasing age while RTs for correct responses and other, arbitrary, error-signaling responses markedly increased. (Author/SJL)

Examines 158 examples of malapropisms and determines three possible sources of this type of error: (1) childhood errors that were never corrected, (2) other kinds of imperfect learning, and (3) breakdown in the storage and retrieval system of the mental lexicon. (AM)

Errors in naming pictures were studied for 12 children followed from age 15 months to 22 months and for 60 children of similar ages at three different levels of vocabulary development. An increase in naming errors was found with sudden increases in productive vocabulary, suggesting interference from previously retrieved words. (SLD)

Sixty-four adults were tested on simple addition and multiplication problems presented in Arabic digit or English number-word format. Overall, response times and error rates were much higher with the word format, but more important, presentation format interacted with arithmetic operation and problem size. (DR)

This study tested the hypothesis that memory is a major source of variance in temporal processing. Participants categorized intervals as short or long. The number of base durations and interval types mixed within blocks of trials varied from 1 session to another. Results revealed that mixing 2 base durations within blocks increased categorization…

Simple name-retrieval models of spoken word planning (Bloem & La Heij, 2003; Starreveld & La Heij, 1996) maintain (1) that there are two levels in word planning, a conceptual and a lexical phonological level, and (2) that planning a word in both object naming and oral reading involves the selection of a lexical phonological representation.…

The goal of this study was to find a way to quantify three criteria of representational quality, described by Greeno, so that it would be possible to examine statistically the relationship between representational quality and other variables related to problem solution. The sample consisted of 18 college students, 84 percent of whom had…

A study was conducted to explore the generality of reconstructive processes of memory for social information. Sixty college students divided evenly into six experimental and control groups were asked to read one of two versions of a story: one in which a couple happily agreed not to have children, the other in which the man's desire to remain…

Investigated memory span and memory scanning in both auditory and visual modalities of 24 good and poor, 10-year-old readers. The major finding was that short-term memory function deteriorated over time in the poor reading group. (Author/LLK)

A level prediction task, in the context of Piaget's conservation-of-liquid problem, was used to analyze the regularities of incompetence'' in the nonconserving or noncompensating child. (Author)

Examines some historical facts surrounding Thorndike's 1917 article, Reading as Reasoning: A Study of Mistakes in Paragraph Reading," (republished in Reading Research Quarterly, 1971, 6, 425-48), in an attempt to put the article in its proper perspective both as a research study and as a contribution to the psychology of reading. (VJ)

This study explored differences among 10 children with Central Auditory Processing Disorder (CAPD), 10 age-matched peers, and 10 young adults, by examining vocal reaction time when presented with printed one- and two-syllable words. Children with CAPD produced significantly more errors than their peers or adults, specifically for long-delay…

Semantic or vocabulary errors were measured among 6 children with autism and mild learning disability (ages 7-8) and 6 with mild learning disability. Vocabulary errors were similar, except under extension, which was not used by children with autism. Children with autism tended to use all mechanisms in order to name something. (Contains…