Contrary to the basic-level restraint hypothesis, which suggests that young children learn basic-level words more easily than specific-level words, these five studies show that although other constraints on word meaning may be in place, children are flexible in interpreting new words at different hierarchical levels. (MDM)

A word may mean different things in different contexts. The current study explored the changing denotations of spatial terms, focusing on how the distance inferred from a spatial description varied as a function of the size of the objects being spatially related. We examined both terms that explicitly convey distance (i.e., topological terms such…

A common error in children's attempts to solve verbal analogies is to respond with a word strongly associated with the third term in the analogy. This is known as associative response. A study was conducted to investigate the cognitive processes underlying this response. Subjects, 112 fifth grade students, were administered a battery of tests…

THE VARIOUS PROCESSES AND CONTROLS INVOLVED IN THE VARIATION OF EYE MOVEMENTS ACCORDING TO READING MATERIAL ARE DISCUSSED. RELEVANT RESEARCH LITERATURE IS CITED, AND AREAS REQUIRING ADDITIONAL RESEARCH ARE OUTLINED. LANGUAGE TEXT CONTROL AND THE CENTRAL NERVOUS SYSTEM AS POSSIBLE LOCI OF CONTROL FOR EYE MOVEMENTS ARE EXPLORED. EVIDENCE SUPPORTING…

The review summarizes empirical findings and theoretical views related to the Stroop color-word phenomenon, in which naming of a color is disrupted and delayed by the presence of an "irrelevant" word denoting a color different from the color patch. It was deemed important to increase awareness of this phenomenon, since it involves basic…

The possible interaction between age-relevant facilitative instructions and the occurrence of phonetic and semantic generalization was investigated. (Author)

Paper based on research reported in a master's thesis submitted by Linda J. K. Klank at the University of Colorado. (DS)

Differing amounts and ordering of pictorial content were compared to determine their effect on learning word-referent relations in a second language. Findings indicated there is an optimal level at which nonverbal context facilitates the process of inferring word meanings in a foreign language. (Author/DS)

Idiom comprehension was assessed in 10 aphasic patients with semantic deficits by means of a string-to-picture matching task. Patients were also submitted to an oral explanation of the same idioms, and to a word comprehension task. The stimuli of this last task were the words following the verb in the idioms. Idiom comprehension was severely…

Twenty college students, ten each in the experimental and control groups, were the subjects of an experiment designed to demonstrate that integration of verb meanings occurs in connected discourse. Six paragraph-length stories, each of which included one or two critical sentences containing a general verb, were presented orally to the subjects.…

Two hundred sixty-five subjects learned a mixed list of paired associates in an AB, AD and AB, CD transfer paradigm. Two levels of semantic processing were factorially varied across original and interpolated pairs. Recall of original pairs was shown to be directly related to the processing depth of original pairs in both paradigms and inversely…

This paper investigates the ways readers use two semantic tools, synonymy and entailment, when responding to reading-comprehension questions. After a brief overview of semantic theory, two reading passages and their attendant multiple-choice questions are analyzed, demonstrating how readers might choose the correct answer by analyzing the way it…

Four experiments are reported in which relations of semantic distance to response latencies in similarity judgments, to reaction times in a same-different classification task, and to proximity of recall in a free recall task were investigated. (Author/RM)

Discusses the uses and advantages of pictorial schemata in teaching vocabulary to second language learners. The advantages are that the learner is encouraged not only to deal with lexical ordering but also to look for such ordering when learning the language outside the classroom. Describes how to design a schemata. (SED)

Data on the semantic proximity of classical mechanics concepts, obtained by means of a cross-sectional investigation (100 subjects) using a continued word association test, were analyzed by individual difference multidimensional scaling to permit the mapping of semantic space for individual subjects. (JC)