The effects of sentence imitation and picture verification on the recall of subsequent digits were studied. Stimuli consisted of 20 sentences, each sentence followed by a string of five digit names, and five structural types of sentences were presented. Subjects were instructed to listen to the sentence and digit string and then either immediately…

An experiment to determine the effects of perceptual organization on learning and remembering a motor task is described. Four test groups received different methods of presentation of movements to be learned--sequential-sequential, sequential-random, random-sequential, and random-random. Analysis of variance was used to examine results. Results…

The studies summarized in this report on instructional theory and computer based tutorial systems were directed at two aspects of the study of learning and instruction: the theoretical understanding of human memory and the development of intelligent interactive computer systems for instruction. Two major computer-based tutorial systems developed…

It is reasonable to assume that information such as the fact that "a beaver is larger than a mouse" is part of the average college student's generalized world knowledge. The present experiments examine the processes whereby new information is integrated with this type of generalized world knowledge. During the study phase of these…

The present study investigated the effects of repetitions and questions (without feedback) at varying lags during self-paced learning from text. High school students read a series of unrelated paragraphs, each of which was repeated or tested after a variable lag. In a mixed condition, texts and repetitions of particular sentences were combined…

Primacy and recency aspects of short term memory (STM) were investigated with 30 learning disabled (LD) and 30 normal children, all with a mean age of 113 months. The pretest experiment compared the serial position curve performance of LD and normal children when seven-digit series were presented visually or auditorially. The second experiment…

The present investigation looked at selective attention in impulsive and reflective children using a central/incidental task similar to that used by Hagen, 1967. In order to examine developmental change in selective attention, children at kindergarten, second, and fifth grades were tested. The central recall task involved presenting the child with…

The purpose of the two experiments was to assess the effects of two levels of stimulus redundancy and three levels of irrelevant visual stimulation on performance in a successive discrimination task and a reproduction task. The results indicate that increases in redundancy facilitated performance in the reproduction task but had no appreciable…

The relation of arousal to retention in free learning was studied in a 3 x 2 design employing 48 undergraduates as Ss, three list conditions (high arousal, low arousal, mixed list) and two retention intervals (immediate and 3 days). Arousal value of the words was based on earlier studies. Contrary to previous paired-associate studies, no…

In three experiments employing 60 Ss, arousal was manipulated by white noise during paired-associate, serial, and free learning in an effort to investigate the relationships of arousal and long-term recall. Previous research suggested that high arousal in the paired-associate paradigm leads to better retention relative to low arousal. The present…

The purpose of this study was to determine if implicit associational responses (IARs) occur to individual words presented as pairs for associative learning. The occurrence of IARs was determined by a YES-NO recognition test, and IARs for words presented singly for study provided a base line. For all condition, false recognitions to assumed IARs…

Following a review of recent research in the University of Washington Department of Psychology project, Individual Differences in Cognition, analyses are reported linking performance in laboratory studies of cognition to performance on selected psychometric instruments. Intent of the study was to provide an empirical followup of Carrolls's (1974)…

The purpose of these studies was to provide evidence to support either the dual-coding hypothesis or the single-system hypothesis of human memory. In one experiment, college subjects were shown a mixed series of words and pictures either while simultaneously engaged in shadowing (repeating aloud) a prose passage presented via earphones or while…

Two conflicting hypotheses were investigated in this study. The first is based on an interference theory of forgetting and assumes that forgetting is largely a function of proactive interference, i.e., a result of interference by previously learned material. The second is based on the improvement of memory due to basic mechanisms that may operate…