Discusses a method used at DePaul University of Chicago, Illinois, in a relativity course for students who are not science majors, emphasizing logical reasoning rather than memory of facts. (HM)

Mildly retarded children were instructed in encoding strategies or rehearsal strategy. Performance was higher for semantic encoding strategies. Seven months later the semantic condition also showed greater improvement after strategies were prompted. Performance on incidental learning tasks was enhanced for 13- but not 10-year olds. (Author/RD)

A multirate mathematical model is presented to support the hypothesis that different types of information are lost from a memory trace at different rates. The model is validated by two experiments assessing the retention of pictures and of sentences at three different delays by cued recall. (Author/CP)

Investigates the relationship of reading ability and age to children's recall of expository text after reading and analyzes children's sensitivity to text structure. (MKM)

Addresses the questions of whether young children would differentially utilize spatial and thematic cues for recall and/or organization and whether such effects would persist over time. Subjects were 60 fifth-grade and 60 preschool children. (MP)

Two experiments, involving 90 first-grade children, were conducted to test a retrieval-inefficiency explanation for the failure of visual imagery to facilitate young children's prose recall. (Author/MP)

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)

A schema-based framework for representing knowledge and prose organization was studied. Testing of a script pointer and tag hypothesis confirmed that memory discrimination is better for atypical actions in a passage than for typical script actions and that there is no memory discrimination for very typical actions. (SW)

Investigated was the hypothesis that high arousal increases processing of physical characteristics and reduces processing of semantic characteristics. While introverts and extroverts had equivalent scanning rates for physical features, introverts were significantly slower in searching for semantic features of category membership, indicating…

This review of the concept learning literature indicates that the greater effectiveness of field-independent learners is related to memory efficiency and the ability to conduct combinatorial analysis. Short-term memory and free recall studies suggest factors contributing to the less efficient memory of field-dependent learners. (Editor/SJL)

Discusses the relationship between language impairments and memory. A discovery process that can be used to determine the degree to which children's long-term memories vary across recall content and contexts, and a method for determining which memory facilitation strategies are the most effective are discussed. (CR)

Explains how many of the narratives told by children are mapped onto frameworks carried in long-term memory. Assessment methods that speech-language pathologists can use to determine whether a child can use narrative frameworks and how to explain the assessment results are discussed. (Author/CR)

The influence of feedback on the cognitive task performance of 30 adults with mental retardation having either high or low self-esteem was assessed. All subjects performed two memory tasks (easy, difficult) under one of three feedback conditions (social, computer, and no feedback). Social feedback was most effective in altering the positive…

Two meta-analyses, one with 27,973 subjects in 31 studies and one with 34,262 subjects in 141 studies, found that tests of short-term memory are valid predictors of job and training performance and that racial differences are smaller than is usual on cognitive tests. (SLD)

Examines the effects of Urdu, a phonologically transparent orthography with regular letter-sound correspondences, on the development of reading in English. Finds that children with high levels of vocabulary knowledge and phonological awareness in Urdu were more likely to do well with English reading tasks as opposed to visual memory tasks. (CMK)