The effects of four objective treatments (none, before text, after text, and combined before and after text) and two types of experience (practical and experimental) were investigated for intentional and incidental learning. (Author/RC)

Research supported in part by a Public Health Service Fellowship (MH-6668) and by Grant M-3519 from the National Institute of Mental Health, U.S. Public Health Service.

The incidental learning paradigm supports two findings concerning selective attention: (1) the difference between central and incidental task performance increases with age, and (2) the correlation between central and incidental performance decreases with age. Neither of these findings clearly supports the view that attentional selectivity…

The effects of several factors on expended processing capacity were measured. Expended processing capacity was greater when information was retrieved from secondary memory than from primary memory, when processing was of a deep, semantic nature than when it was shallow and physical, and when processing was more elaborate. (Author/GDC)

The effects of incidental learning were assessed in 2 experiments involving 201 seventh graders in Poland through an experimental paradigm based on the levels of processing theory. Data suggest that an important aspect of intelligence is "opportunistic" learning (learning in advance). Intelligent people take cognitive advantage of…

Ten children and adolescents with severe mental retardation were assigned in matched pairs to either a lexigram augmentative communication condition (graphic symbols) or a control condition (social stimulation). The three subjects who successfully acquired lexigrams also exhibited changes in attention, intentional communication, and sociability.…

Three papers comment on a paper by Abrahamsen et al (EC 212 728) on concomitants of success in acquiring an augmentative communication system (AAC) by persons with severe mental retardation. Comments focus on design and methodological requirements, principles of AAC, and sequence and process in indirect aspects of communicative gains. (DB)

First, third, and eighth graders performed four different orienting activities to different words. Under an incidental learning paradigm, the children's recognition was tested after the orienting activity. Age differences in recognition were absent, and the effect of the orienting activity responses on recognition supported depth of processing…

Attempts to train learning strategies have not produced marked or lasting increases in academic IQ, probably because current training models fail to recognize the evolutionary nature of strategies acquisition. Empirical and theoretical evidence supports an incidental learning model, which engineers the instructional environment following study…

The effect of verbal labeling in a serial position short term memory task was investigated. Forty female college students were given 16 trials each. Eight trials involved only central items which had to be recalled. The other eight trials involved both central and incidental items. Half of the subjects verbalized the names of the central items as…

The effect of the sensory discriminability of targets from nontargets on depth of nontarget processing was examined. Depth of nontarget processing was measured by semantic overlap between targets and nontargets, reaction time, and nontarget recall. Depth of processing decreased as sensory discriminability increased, supporting multiple-loci…

The differences in performance on a variety of cognitive measures were studied in 67 learning disabled (LD) and normal elementary school children. Younger and older Ss were administered tests of conceptual sorting, central and incidental learning, and selective attention. Teacher ratings of classroom hyperactive behavior were also examined. LD Ss…

This study compared factors contributing to Quick Incidental Learning of new vocabulary by 50 5-year olds with specific language impairment (SLI) and 2 comparison groups. Although SLI children exhibited a robust representational mapping ability, performance was modulated by a minimum input constraint and apparent problems with storage into…