Two divergent views of linguistic ability in adulthood currently exist. One view maintains that verbal ability is preserved in old age, while the other view maintains that verbal ability declines, especially comprehension. To analyze the effects of semantic priming during sentence processing by 30 younger adults (mean age, 25 years) and 30 older…

An experimental context designed to directly affect discourse processing by inducing subjects to generate inferences involving text content was compared to a context in which subjects simply listened to and recalled the content of a text. Context did effect the amount of inferred and overgeneralized semantic information in subjects' text recalls.…

Hitherto, theories of similarity have restricted themselves to judgments of what might be called literal similarity. A central thesis of this paper is that a complete account of similarity needs also to be sensitive to nonliteralness, or metaphoricity, an aspect of similarity statements that is most evident in similes, but that actually underlies…

Students learn, understand, and retain knowledge best when they discover it themselves. In the area of semantics, the study of how meaning is conveyed through language, explicit knowledge may appear to be obvious once it becomes conscious, but unless people are explicitly aware of their implicit knowledge and assumptions, they may be at their…

Readers are "dumb" because they are not privy to the mind and intentions of the writer; and the failure of the unsuccessful writer is a failure to forecast what it is going to be like to be a dumb reader of the document. Sample sentences from students' writing illustrate the following types of writing problems, which force the reader to examine…

A familiarization procedure was used in two experiments investigating word encoding in second and sixth graders. Previous studies using release from proactive inhibition had indicated that developmental changes on some encoding dimensions occur during this period. It is argued that the dependence of release from proactive inhibition on deliberate…

Defining metaphor as "seeing a concept from one class in terms of a concept from another class," a study was devised that analyzed the degree to which two concepts occupy dissimilar positions with respect to their category or domain (within-domain distance), and the degree to which categories themselves are dissimilar (between-domain distance).…

Mentally retarded subjects who could read were tested on their ability to pronounce words and to produce meaningful associates. Analyses of their responses indicated an overuse of a strategy of memorizing words as a way to recognize words in print and an inability to consider word meanings in terms of abstract referents. A comparison of these…

This report describes research on Bartlett's theory of constructive memory. In experiment one, schematic retention is related to Tulving's distinction between episodic and semantic memory. With the passage of time, memory for prose reflects decreasing output from episodic memory and increasing output from semantic memory. In experiment two,…

This study was conducted to determine whether the recent semantic-physical processing distinction that Jenkins and his associates have invoked to account for differences in subjects' recall and clustering of verbal materials could be extended to include pictorial materials as well. In the first experiment, second-grade children were exposed to 15…

To determine the effects of instruction in general semantics on the critical thinking of secondary students, 104 tenth- and eleventh-grade students in control and experimental groups completed the "Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal" test before and after the 12-week teaching period, in which two teachers spent 1 hour per week in the…

It was hypothesized that by age 8 children would manifest an adult meaning system, and that 5-year-old children would not. An adult meaning system allows an adult to transcend component word meanings and integrate, in the presence of a speaker, the underdetermined and the factual proposition into a meaningful whole. Subjects were 60 5- and…

This study was undertaken to test the validity of Neuringer and Lettieri's hypothesis (suicide as a result of a life style versus suicide as an acute reaction to problem situations) about the relationship between suicidal behavior, state and cognitive style. (Author/RK)

In two experiments, subjects verified 15 bird and 15 tool names on a list coming under either the category bird/tool (second hierarchical level [L2] of verification) or the category animate/inanimate (fourth hierarchical level [L4] verification). Subjects recalled fewer words following the L4 than the L2 verification. (Author/RM)

In this study 60 first and fourth graders selected pictures that best represented the meanings of sentences read to them. Results indicated that children were instantiating the target words with specific concepts rather than bringing to mind abstract, undifferentiated meanings. (HOD)