Paragraph recall was easier if prior information, presented as elaborations of the paragraph sentences, was precise, rather than irrelevant or imprecise. Precise information also permitted quick and efficient elaboration of new information. (Author/CP)

The effects of several factors on expended processing capacity were measured. Expended processing capacity was greater when information was retrieved from secondary memory than from primary memory, when processing was of a deep, semantic nature than when it was shallow and physical, and when processing was more elaborate. (Author/GDC)

Among the findings were that there was no significant difference in performance between Down's syndrome, other mentally handicapped, and normal Ss matched for mental age, when extraneous developmental factors were eliminated; and that there was no relationship between mental age and visual perception in any group. (DLS)

In order to determine whether mistakes committed by younger children are the result of retention mistakes rather than faulty perceptual encoding, twenty children (6, 8, 10, and 12 years old) reconstructed two visual patterns from immediate memory, while twenty other children (5 and 6 years old) reconstructed the identical patterns by direct…

The relationship between categorical organization and recall for children in grades 2, 4, and 6 and for adults was investigated using the sorting-recall procedure. (MP)

A potential cause for children's failure to transfer learning strategies was explored. Subjects were 68 first, third, and fifth graders. (MP)

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)

Variables affecting long-term retention are examined: (1) learner history--including ability, prior knowledge and self-confidence; (2) events (teaching techniques) occurring immediately before reading; (3) events occurring during reading; and (4) events in the retention interval, particularly practice effects. The ACT associationist model is used…

Memory representations of statements from a story were predicted to cluster into separate episode chunks in memory. It was shown that the recall of episode depends on the length of that episode, but not on the lengths of other episodes. The chunking idea was confirmed. (SW)

A technique was devised for constructing a text story which subjects agreed matched the dialogueless movie "The Red Balloon" in episodic structure. It relies partly on subjects judging where episodes and their components were located in the stories. Differences in content in movie and text recall are discussed. (SW)

Investigates the influence of logical skills (inclusion and seriation) on the degree and kind of semantic integration performed on remembered material among 47 third- and fourth-grade boys and girls and college students. (JMB)

Experiment 1 showed that four-year-old children memorized a list of non-rhyming items better than a list of rhyming ones. In Experiment 2, bilingual children learned a list of items which had rhyming names in one language and non-rhyming names in the other. Results showed better performance on the non-rhyming items. (JMB)

Recognition memory for sentences from a classroom lecture was tested as a function of lecture instructions, length of retention interval, and item type. With immediate testing, subjects differentiated original sentences from reworded and inferential statements similar in meaning. Only inferences were recognized as not having been presented after…

Using the hypothesis that arousal changes during learning are significantly related to retention, this study tests whether there are arousal differences in Black and White students in a testing situation where they are confronted with White examiners. (RLV)

Notetaking and rereading improved college students' recall of text material, but summarizing passages without reference to the original text did not. (Editor)