The aim of this study was to explore the aesthetic impact of a literary text on the human mind and to extend the knowledge on how and when the information from a book enters the human brain, and if and when it starts to be processed and, possibly, memorized. Readers' responses to aesthetic texts were measured through a series of biometric…

Although techniques of autosuggestion in personal development have a long history in some Eastern cultures, suggestibility as a character trait first came into focus in the West with the "animal magnetism" of Franz Mesmer. The uncovering of the nature and phenomena of hypnosis resulted in a steady and enduring interest in this state of…

A psychological model can show the technical writer how to present information for effective communication by explaining how readers perceive, understand, learn, and remember. The principles underlying the model are the reader's psychological set, the mind's pattern-forming tendencies, the span of short-term memory, and the mind's need for…

A study tested the assumption found in schema theory that scripted knowledge automatically provides specific content details about scripted activity, thereby biasing a reader's immediate interpretation of a text. The study measured how quickly and accurately 16 college students could verify script related words. Subjects listened to four scripted…

Data from three general psychology classes were used in a study of the chunking method of teaching and studying. Two classes participated in a study on chunking study outline (CSO) length, and one in a study on retention rates. Results of students with high and low cognitive processing capacities (CPC) were also compared. It was found that a CSO…

A study examined the effects of within domain processing on the recall of idea units as well as the potential reversals in performance resulting from the passing of time. Subjects for the experiment were 89 undergraduate students randomly assigned to six conditions related to target words in a reading passage: counting e's, determining the…

This study is concerned with how much children remember about a salient event in their life, how much is forgotten over time, and whether age at the time of the event affects how much is remembered. Thirty-six children (ages 4, 8, and 12) and 26 college students, all of whom had a sibling born when they were age 4, were either interviewed or given…

This report discusses research and theory that explore relationships between comprehension and knowledge acquisition. Studies are reported that indicate the lack of a one-to-one correspondence between initial comprehension activities and abilities to remember. It is noted that the value of comprehensive activities depends on how people must later…

This experiment was designed to test whether paired objects described as interacting through movement are more memorable to young children than the same objects described as alike in structure or color. Drawings of eight familiar objects were presented in unfamiliar combinations to forty-five 4-year-old subjects. Objects were described as…

The results of this study support the assumption that long-term memory is not modified when a person performs a task utilizing an automatic process. Twelve university students performed an incidental learning task which consisted of scanning lists of words for either their own name, first names other than their own, words representing a unit of…

This study examined the effect of presentation rate on accuracy of digit serial recall and on serial position curves of digit strings of different lengths with 18 boys classified as reading retarded and a comparison group of children (ages for both groups averaged 11 years) who read at grade level. The results indicated that normal children…

A theory for representation of concepts in memory is proposed which emphasizes the association of salient exemplars with the concept. Previous theories dealing with the classification processes involved in acquiring new concepts have shown that clear category boundaries do not exist. It is proposed that present theory must account for the…

Twenty kindergarten children, 5 to 6 years of age, were presented a free recall task in which half of the subjects were asked to generate a "plan of attack" for remembering before experiencing a study-test sequence. The materials were three different sets of 12 pictures each. In each set, three different conceptual categories were represented…