Depressive brooding--a passive ruminative focus on one's problems, negative mood and their consequences--is a thinking style that places individuals at a greater risk to develop future psychopathology. In this study, we investigated whether inter-individual differences in depressive brooding are related to neural differences underlying the…

Retroactive interference (RI) in list learning occurs when the learning of a second list of words interferes with the recall of the first learned list. Having the lists be thematically different can reduce retroactive interference within list learning; however, this study demonstrates how RI can be reduced when the lists contain similar words.…

Reality monitoring concerns the ability to distinguish knowledge that an individual has produced internally (through reasoning, imagination, etc.) from knowledge that was obtained through experience (or "externally"). A model of reality monitoring is proposed and discussed. (JKS)

This study investigates performance differences between reflective and impulsive subjects on a recognition memory task. Results indicate that verbal recognition memory is sensitive to both cognitive style and presentation mode. (JMF)

In this report, three theories of transitive inference are compared as they apply to the solution of linear syllogisms: a spatial theory, a linguistic theory, and a new mixed linguistic-spatial theory. Each theory is expressed in terms of an information-processing (flow chart) model and a mathematical model that quantifies the…

The effects of verbal analogies and quantitative and verbal aptitudes on comprehension and memory of a technical text were studied. In a cued recall test, the presence of an analogy decreased the performance of high quantitative aptitude university students and tended to increase the performance of low quantitative aptitude students. In a…

People sometimes forget a name or a word, and are plagued by the feeling that the sought-for word is somewhere in memory but not immediately available. The frequent description of this tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) phenomenon as subthreshold memory traces is challenged by data showing that TOT genesis and TOT recovery are distinct processes. In a verbal…

Reports three experiments investigating the relationship of the suffix effect and echoic memory. Shows that echoic memory persists for at least 20 seconds. Illustrates that echoic memory can be used to establish a more effective nonechoic memory. Shows that recency recall is higher to auditory than to visual items. (PMJ)

Approximately 40% of college students are visual learners, preferring to be taught through pictures, diagrams, flow charts, timelines, films, and demonstrations. Yet marketing instruction remains heavily reliant on presenting content primarily through verbal cues such as written or spoken words. Without visual instruction, some students may be…

Reports three experiments to test age-related difFerences in sentence memory arising from sources other than noncognitive factors. Age-related differences are discussed in terms of deficiencies at encoding and retrieval. (PMJ)

For the twenty-eighth year, the Research and Theory Division of the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT) is sponsoring the publication of these Proceedings. Papers published in this volume were presented at the National AECT Convention in Orlando, Florida. The Proceedings of AECT's Convention are published in two…