Using simple writing strategies, senior citizens at an elder camp workshop collected memories in journals. In some cases, readings were used to trigger memories. The exercise enabled students to make connections between their own life experiences and the life experiences of others. Workshops encouraging participants to tell their own stories for…

Memory research has recently moved from looking at performance in highly artificial laboratory tasks to examination of tasks in everyday life. One consequence is the development of the concept of "working memory." For the learner, foreign language comprehension makes great demands on working memory capacity. Comprehension of a message requires…

Empirical research into reading theory suggests people begin a reading transaction with an affective response and then primarily rely on memory. They may elect to use imagination as an option to influence the process, but when the affective response is overwhelming, the imagination lies dormant while memory dominates the transaction. A research…

This article, written for psychologists, educators, and allied health professionals, is both a review of the "Handbook of Human Intelligence" Robert S. Sternberg, editor, and an essay in response to it. Following a note on the contributions made to the field of cognitive psychology by Sternberg and the Handbook, chapters of the book,…

Two experiments were conducted to investigate the effect of reader perspective on encoding, storage, and retrieval processes and how this effect differs as a function of cognitive style. In both experiments, subjects read a passage from one of two assigned perspectives (a burglar or a prospective home buyer) or from no assigned perspective. In the…

A study of children's and young adults' retention of words and their presentation modality addressed three issues: (1) how long the modality information is retained, (2) whether children or adults lose it more rapidly, and (3) whether the word or modality information is lost more rapidly. The study consisted of two experiments. In the first, 32…

Three methods for studying college textbook chapters were compared, with 50 college special admissions students as subjects. Utilizing a counterbalanced design, students enrolled in a study skills course were given instruction in three study techniques: SQ3R, outlining, and underlining. The SQ3R method (Francis Robinson, 1946) consists of five…

This paper outlines several "tricks" that aid students in improving their memories. The distinctions between operational and figural thought processes are noted. Operational memory is described as something that allows adults to make generalizations about numbers and the rules by which they may be combined, thus leading to easier memorization.…

The behavior of mothers interacting with their preschoolers in a memory-relevant situation was examined. Ten 3-year-olds and their mothers were videotaped playing a game requiring memory for the location of hidden pictures. Frequency of nine categories of parental behavior was scored: naming, verbal orienting, physical orienting, physical…

Memory for everyday conversational speech may be influenced by the nonverbally communicated emotion of the speaker. In order to investigate this premise, three videotaped scenes with bipolar emotional perspectives (joy/fear about going away to college, fear/anger about having been robbed, and disgust/interest regarding a friend's infidelity) were…

Three experiments were performed using unrelated digit materials and prose passages to evaluate whether an auditory or visual presentation of material would be best for an aged population. Data suggests that the choice of modality depends on the particular presentation condition rather than on the type of stimulus materials. (Author)

Subjects read sets of active or passive sentences, and an active or passive question was asked about one. Errors were compared. Results suggest that surface form of a single sentence is retained; surface and deep structures are retained for two, and only deep structures of four and eight sentences. (CHK)

Crossing high bridges offers the opportunity to ponder views from a distance: to see connections between places at the ground level or ideas that are familiar, and to capture an overview of places or ideas that are yet to be explored. The purpose of this essay is to explore the figural bridges that connect the arts with cognitive development and…

The relation of domain knowledge to achievement, and changes in this relation that occur with age and type of memory task, are discussed. First, different mechanisms through which domain-specific knowledge relates to strategy use in memory tasks are summarized. Then, empirical evidence that indicates direct effects of the knowledge base on memory…