The factor-referenced kits developed by the Educational Testing Service (ETS) are assessed. With support from the National Science Foundation, the researcher surveyed the total range of research done over the past 65 years on the identification of cognitive abilities, principally through factor analysis. From a corpus of an estimated 2,000 data…

A study of the agenda-setting influence of the mass media on adult viewers explored (in a series of five experiments) how political knowledge stored in long term memory can be activated by the media, leading to decisions about issue salience. Spreading activation theory formed the basis for the study, and priming--the concept that the activation…

Prior studies have often confounded linguistic and perceptual performance when evaluating deaf subjects' skills, a confusion that may be responsible for results indicating lesser recall ability among the deaf. In this series of studies this linguistic/perceptual confound was investigated in both the iconic and short term memory of deaf…

A study examined the emergent patterns and anomalies of adult readers as they unload information from their long term memory into their retellings of text. Participants were 16 graduate students enrolled in a Reading Education Seminar at Indiana University. Participants formed a heterogeneous group which included speakers of six different…

This study conducted in a midwestern city, addressed problems experienced by learning disabled (LD) students in recalling specialized science and social studies vocabulary. This apparent problem was confirmed by a teacher questionnaire and analyses of types and frequency of test errors on recent exams. Students appeared unfamiliar with memory…

This study investigates the validity of the Stanford Binet Intelligence Scale-Fourth Edition (S-B:4) for use with students with learning disabilities. It compares the performance of 18 elementary-age students on the S-B:4 and the Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children (K-ABC). The subjects were identified by their school as having learning…

A theory of memory is introduced, which seeks to respond to the shortcomings of existing theories based on metaphors. Memory is presented as a mechanism, a comparison process in which information held in some form of immediate storage (whether based on perception or previous cognition or both) is compared to previously stored long-term storage.…

A study tested an information processing model that incorporates the concepts of episodic and semantic memory. The model was designed to provide for the concurrent study of three advertising and communication variables: product involvement, message appeal, and distraction in viewing conditions. Among the five hypotheses being tested were that…

The information processing model, a theoretical framework of how humans think, reason, and learn, views human cognitive functioning as analogous to the operation of a computer. This paper uses the increased understanding of the information processing model to provide teachers with suggestions for improving the teaching-learning process. Major…

Accurate and automatic production of the basic number combinations is a major objective of elementary mathematics education. Typically, it is not an objective that is easily and quickly attained. Indeed, teachers regularly lament about how difficult it is to get their students to master the basic "number facts." This problem may be due,…

Two experiments investigated children's strategies for solving geometric matrices that were correctly or incorrectly completed and that varied in number of elements and number of transformations. Examining the relationship between working memory and item complexity, the first experiment tested 90 boys and girls of 7, 10, and 13 years of age for…

The poorer performance of older people in laboratory tests of episodic memory may result from failures or deficiencies in metamemory processes, e.g., failure to monitor task or individual item difficulty. To study age differences in prediction of memory performance, an associative matching task was used to compare young (N=20) and older (N=20)…

A study examined basic reading skills among men in prison, comparing poor and adequate readers with respect to comprehension, decoding, short-term memory, and speech perception. Subjects, 88 inmates of normal intelligence, normal hearing, and no significant speech abnormalities, at a minimum-security prison, were given reading comprehension tests…

The relationship between metamemorial accuracy and student test performance was assessed in a graduate educational psychology class. Metamemory is defined as information about the content of one's own memory. Adult students in two courses (N=67) were asked to select multiple choice answers in two midterms and a final examination and to rate their…

In an effort to understand why pictures are used to supplement learning material, a study explored (1) the role of humor in recall, and (2) whether the effects of humor are independent of the individual's ability level. Subjects--students from either the high SAT (approximate average of 1200 points) population (HS), or the low SAT (approximate…