This paper discusses the application of Karl Maton's notion of 'semantic waves' to the teaching of geography at the post-16 phase (A-level) in England. Drawing on evidence generated through a 2-year close-to-practice case study, it illustrates its potential as a scaffold in two ways. Firstly, one that can help teachers face both ways: Towards…

When we look at repeated scenes, we tend to visit similar regions each time--a phenomenon known as "resampling." Resampling has long been attributed to episodic memory, but the relationship between resampling and episodic memory has recently been found to be less consistent than assumed. A possibility that has yet to be fully considered…

Building and checking concept maps is an active research topic in visual learning. Concept maps are intended to show visual representations of interrelated concepts in educational and professional settings. For the last decades, numerous formulas have been proposed to compute the semantic proximity between any pair of concepts in the map. A review…

The Abstract Conceptual Feature (ACF) framework predicts that word meaning is represented within a high-dimensional semantic space bounded by weighted contributions of perceptual, affective, and encyclopedic information. The ACF, like latent semantic analysis, is amenable to distance metrics between any two words. We applied predictions of the ACF…

An exploratory study involving three learning disabled students suggested that semantic maps, a visuospatial strategy in which concepts are linked, promoted reading comprehension. (CL)

Many disciplines, including semantics, linguistics, philosophy, psychology, and the practical arts, have contributed to our knowledge of visual literacy. Insights these disciplines have made about the nature of meaning, art, or perception apply to visual literacy. If, as some studies indicate, some children are visually rather than verbally…

The current experiment compared the development of encoding preferences in learning disabled children and non-disabled children. Both learning disabled (LD) and non-learning disabled (non-LD) boys from grades 2 and 6 were given a false recognition task. To measure the relative dominance of attributes encoded by the two groups at the two ages,…

Sixteen skilled and 16 learning disabled (LD) readers (ages 11-12) viewed nonsense pictures either without names, with names that emphasized the semantic aspects of the picture, or with names unassociated with the pictorial representation. Results suggested that semantic coding deficits in LD readers were localized to retrieval processes.…

A non-verbal 12-year-old boy with low functioning autism was tested on an auditory word-to-picture selection task. Picture foils were chosen to have visual features, semantic features, both, or neither in common with the correct answer. Errors were made more often to semantically than to visually related items. (Contains references.) (Author/CR)

The extant picture-learning research does not address confusing word pairs that are not concrete (e.g., in and into). In this study, university students viewed 11 timed Web pages containing information on confusing word pairs. Each page addressed one word pair and distinguished the words with examples (example group), examples and rules (rule…

Reports three experiments to investigate differences in the semantic classification of pictures and words. The data suggest that visual short-term memory and semantic memory operate in semantic-decision tasks though these sources of information differ in characteristics, potential for activation, and level of abstraction. (PMJ)

Describes a study of undergraduates that explored the technique of progressive disclosure of information as a type of interactive illustration using paired associates. Noninteractive stimuli versus progressive stimuli are compared, and progression as a technique that provides a visual link to help create a semantic link and facilitate memory is…

This paper stresses the concept of deaf students as visual learners. Educators are urged to think visually in order to help maximize opportunities for deaf students to use their visual learning skills in developing literacy skills, and in their general academic, social, and personal development. Examples are offered of structural/grammatical…

Four presentations in two recall conditions (immediate and one-week delay) were used to investigate the combined effects of imagery and semantic organizational strategies on the free recall of 80 college undergraduates. Both imaginal and semantic organization were comparably manipulated presenting each response noun simultaneously with an imagery…