Places the current educational reform movement in a historical context. Maintains that students today are no more ignorant of history than were previous generations. Distinguishes between memory, remembering, and meaning and suggests the application of these categories to the improvement of history instruction. Describes sample exercise. (RW)

Investigated a prior classification of Wechsler Memory Scale-Revised (WMS-R) subtests into Verbal and Visual categories. Findings from 45 college students found that memory test performance correlated significantly with performance on subtests of Form II of Luria-Nebraska Neuropsychological Battery that measures substrates of particular memory…

One-hundred two undergraduates studied a thematic map and read related text, with the order of presentation varied and half receiving a verbal prime related to the theme. Map-first students recalled more and made more correct inferences. Verbal priming did not affect theme-related recall or inference. (SLD)

Two experiments examined immediate and long-term serial list learning effects for common nouns for 42 fifth graders. Results provide additional evidence that long-term forgetting may be greater for learners who receive mnemonic instruction than for untrained controls, in spite of some immediate enhanced recall. (SLD)

Measurement and psychometric quality of the Sternberg task (S. Sternberg, 1966, 1969), a memory search task, was investigated with 78 undergraduates. Individual performance was fairly homogeneous across responses, fairly unstable over time, and fairly stable across stimulus content. Implications for individual differences research are discussed.…

In 3 experiments, 93, 97, and 86 college students, respectively, learned how to solve 20 verbal analogy problems and took transfer and memory tests. Results are inconsistent with active responding theory and further indicate that schema induction is maximized when the schemas are made salient and the cognitive system is not overloaded. (SLD)

Cognitive load theory was explored in 3 conditions among 96 third graders in nonisomorphic analogical transfer (problems do not have identical structures, constraints, and problem spaces). Conditions under which children best adjust the base to the target are discussed, and implications for transfer are reviewed. (SLD)

A survey of 1712 college students explored the prevalence of and factors associated with forgetting childhood sexual abuse. A minority of victims reported having temporarily forgotten their childhood sexual abuse and were more likely to report that someone had suggested to them that they might have experienced abuse. (Author/CR)

Children (N=110, ages 8 to 10) with either normal or poor reading ability were tested on (1) ability to recall sequences of nonspeech tones presented at various rates, and (2) ability to make phonetic decisions using brief and transitional properties of the speech signal. Results did not support the hypothesis that temporal-processing deficits…

Examines contributions of vowel signs in reading Hebrew on memory and comprehension. Finds that vowel signs speeded up recognition memory of words in third graders, and improved recall of words printed in the context of mixed lists in sixth graders. Finds also that vowelization improved memory and comprehension of some prose texts. (RS)

Two matched groups (24 adolescents and 24 adults) of pregnant mothers were followed for 20 months. During pregnancy, memories of child maltreatment were evaluated. Although adolescent and adult mothers showed no differences in memories of childhood physical or emotional abuse, adolescent mothers and physically abused mothers showed higher child…

Investigated the relationship between grammatical knowledge and reading ability in third grade good and poor readers. Two aspects of grammar--binding and control--were assessed to determine whether poor readers had syntactic deficits. Interpretations were assessed through a sentence-picture matching task in which picture depictions of all possible…

Examined word retrieval in 14- to 24-month-olds. Found that children with limited productive vocabularies were less likely to produce labels of hidden objects than children with larger vocabularies, even though all could name them and did well when asked to find them. Pictorial cues facilitated word retrieval. Naming errors peaked among children…

A study of 1,283 academically talented junior high students found that males had higher scores on three of the four subtests of the Spatial Test Battery of the Institute for the Academic Advancement of Youth. Females scored higher on the visual memory test and spent more time on the tests. (Author/CR)

Argues that human beings create objects to hold onto memories, to ensure accuracy of memories, or to communicate with others in different places or times. Considers tools for remembering both in Western culture, where such tools are often technological, and in other cultures. These tools are more than information storage devices, they can also be…