Interactions Among Elaborative Interrogation, Knowledge, and Interest in the Process of Constructing Knowledge From Text.

The authors examined the impact of elaborative interrogation on knowledge construction during expository text reading, specifically, the interactions among elaborative interrogation, knowledge, and interest. Three measures of learning were taken: recall, inference, and coherence. Elaborative interrogation affected all aspects of learning measured, with a significant interaction between elaborative interrogation and interest with regard to inference. The experimental effect on the measure of inference was larger for the students who had less interest than for the students who had more interest. There was also an interaction effect between knowledge and elaborative interrogation for coherence. The experimental effect on coherence was higher for students who had less knowledge than students who had more knowledge. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Elaborative-interrogation and prior-knowledge effects on learning of facts.

Canadian and West German adults were presented facts about Canadian provinces and West German states (at the time of the study, West Germany was a separate nation of what is now the Federal Republic of Germany). Participants in the elaborative-interrogation condition rationalized why each fact was sensible. Reading-to-understand participants read the facts with the goal of comprehending each one. After presentation of all facts, Ss were asked to match provinces and states to acts associated with them. These performances were compared with matching in a no-exposure-control condition. Prior knowledge had a striking effect on learning in both the elaborative-interrogation and reading-to-understand conditions. Elaborative interrogation also promoted learning of all facts for all participants, although when learners lacked prior knowledge, elaborative interrogation did not produce the high levels of performance that were obtained when Ss possessing high prior knowledge simply read the facts. Both strategies and prior knowledge are critical to efficient learning. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Elaborative interrogation facilitates acquisition of confusing facts.

Evaluated the potency of an elaborative procedure (elaborative interrogation) for fact learning. In particular, we compared it to another elaborative method (constructing imaginal representations) that is usually effective in mediating associative learning. Thus in 4 experiments, adults were presented sets of facts. The 1st 2 experiments involved sentences containing arbitrary information, essentially random pairings of subjects and predicates; the latter 2 experiments involved materials representing real-world associations, ones not known by Ss before the study, but ones that Ss might be able to rationalize on the basis of prior knowledge. In each of the experiments, Ss in the elaborative-interrogation condition constructed a reason why each fact made sense; Ss in the imagery condition constructed an internal imaginal representation of each facts; and reading-control Ss read the facts under an instruction to make certain that they understood each fact. Memory of the facts was consistently much better in the elaborative-interrogation and imagery conditions than in the reading-control condition; there were no reliable performance differences between the elaborative-interrogation and imagery conditions. Elaborative interrogation seems to be a powerful learning procedure that is generally useful during fact learning. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Elaborative interrogation facilitates adult learning of factual paragraphs.

The authors evaluated the potency of elaborative interrogation for promoting acquisition of facts in paragraphs (PARs). University students studied 6-sentence factual PARs about 5 universities (1 fact per sentence). In general, elaborative interrogration facilitated learning better than did self-reference (Experiment 1 only) and reading-control conditions; performance in the elaborative-interrogation conditions equaled performances in the imagery conditions. The elaborative interrogation over control advantage was obtained for both intentional and incidental learning (Experiment 2) and both when subjects processed sentences individually and when they generated answers for each new sentence in a PAR by considering information presented earlier in the PAR (Experiment 2). Even when elaborative-interrogration subjects could not recall facts in their entirety, they were more likely than control subjects to have learned the associations between the university and the factual attribute. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The benefits of embedded question adjuncts for low and high structure builders.

The effectiveness of two types of adjunct questions, standard embedded questions and "why" questions (elaborative interrogation), was investigated for readers differing in structure-building ability (Gernsbacher, 1990). Participants read a textbook chapter either with or without the adjunct questions. Learning was assessed with typical classroom testing methods (multiple choice, short answer). Also, relatedness ratings were used to assess the coherence of learners' representations. High structure builders generally outperformed low structure builders. However, embedded questions but not elaborative interrogation improved the low structure builders' test performances on information targeted by and related to the adjunct questions. Neither study method improved test performance for the high comprehenders. Embedded questions also stimulated more coherent representations. Results indicate that embedded questions are an effective study method for low comprehenders. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Elaborative interrogation effects on children's learning of factual content.

In 2 experiments children in Grades 4–8 learned facts under different instructional conditions. Control Ss were given base sentences containing facts and were permitted to study them as they wished. In some conditions fact sentences were accompanied by elaborations (e.g., an explanation of why a stated animal lived in a stated locale). Ss in the elaborative interrogation conditions attempted to construct their own reasons for why the facts held true. Ss in the imagery conditions constructed internal imaginal representations for each fact (e.g., an image of a stated animal living in the stated locale). Elaborative interrogation was the only condition that significantly facilitated acquisition of facts in both experiments. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Developmental differences in study behavior.

This study is a developmental examination of strategy instruction and the context that promotes when and how strategy instruction is maximized. The 4 experimental manipulations included comparisons between 2 strategy conditions, familiar and unfamiliar text, dyad versus individual study, and 4 age groups (M?=?10.5, 14.7, 19.9, and 21.9 yrs). The 486 students from Grades 5–6, and 9–10 and 1st- and 4th-yr university were assigned randomly to 1 strategy condition (self-study or elaborative interrogation) and 1 study context (dyad or individual). Participants studied and recalled 60 facts about familiar and unfamiliar animals. Explicit instruction in elaborative interrogation promoted memory performance, especially in the younger population. Studying in dyads enhanced memory and quality of study across age. To enhance text learning performance, students should be given explicit strategy instruction and should study interactively with their peers. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Use of elaborative interrogation to help students acquire information consistent with prior knowledge and information inconsistent with prior knowledge.

32 factual statements were processed by 140 6th and 7th graders. Half of the statements were consistent with the Ss' prior knowledge, whereas the remaining facts were inconsistent with the Ss' prior knowledge. Half of the Ss were instructed to read the sentences for understanding (reading controls). The remaining Ss were instructed to use their prior knowledge to answer why each fact was true (elaborative interrogation). Two tests of recall (free and cued) and 2 tests of recognition (immediate and 14-day) followed. In Exp 2, Ss also completed 75-day and 180-day recognition tasks. Across all memory measures, elaborative-interrogation Ss performed significantly better than did reading controls. In general, the quality of the elaborative-interrogation study responses did not affect learning. All Ss recognized more prior-knowledge-consistent facts than prior-knowledge-inconsistent facts. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A comparison of strategies for reducing interval overconfidence in group judgments.

The present experiments examined several strategies designed to reduce interval overconfidence in group judgments. Results consistently indicated that 3–4 person nominal groups (whose members made independent judgments and later combined the highest and lowest of these estimates into a single confidence interval) were better calibrated than individual judges and interactive groups. This pattern held even when participants were directly instructed to expand their interval estimates, or when interactive groups appointed a devil's advocate or explicitly considered reasons why their interval estimates might be too narrow. Interactive groups did not perform substantially better than individuals, although participants frequently had the impression that group judgments were far superior to individual judgments. This misperception resembles the "illusion of group effectivity" found in brainstorming research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Learning with analogy and elaborative interrogation.

Previous work has found that embedding analogy in a text improves accurate inferencing, but at the expense of factual learning of newly learned scientific concepts. This study explored the possibility of eliminating the decrease in factual learning by combining analogy with key-word highlighting, pictorial schematics, or elaborative interrogation. Schematics had no effect on either factual or inference learning. Combining key-word highlighting with analogy increased factual learning to levels comparable with those found in the literal-text conditions. Elaborative interrogation produced robust gains in both factual and inference learning, regardless of whether the technique was combined with analogy. These results represent an extension of the situations in which elaborative interrogation produces potent learning benefits and emphasizes its potential over alternative instructional methods. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of elaborative interrogation with prose passages.

Two hypotheses about the effectiveness of elaborative interrogation were investigated. First, students who engaged in elaborative interrogation while reading would remember more than those who underlined. Second, the characteristics of the students' elaborations would influence learning. 114 students in the 6th and 7th grades were randomly assigned to 1 of 4 conditions: underline-only, underline with elaboration, generate elaboration, and elaboration with study sheet. Generating an elaboration led to better memory for main ideas in comparison with the underline-only group, whereas the underline with elaboration group did better on an inference problem. Characteristics of elaborations did not influence the probability of learning the target fact. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

On the relationship between recognition speed and accuracy for words rehearsed via rote versus elaborative rehearsal.

Tacit within both lay and cognitive conceptualizations of learning is the notion that those conditions of learning that foster "good" retention do so by increasing both the probability and the speed of access to the relevant information. In 3 experiments, time pressure during recognition is shown to decrease accessibility more for words learned via elaborative rehearsal than for words learned via rote rehearsal, despite the fact that elaborative rehearsal is a more efficacious learning strategy as measured by the probability of access. In Experiment 1, participants learned each word using both types of rehearsal, and the results show that access to the products of elaborative rehearsal is more compromised by time pressure than is access to the products of rote rehearsal. The results of Experiment 2, in which each word was learned via either pure rote or pure elaborative rehearsal, exhibit the same pattern. Experiment 3, in which the authors used the response-signal procedure, provides evidence that this difference in accessibility owes not to differences in the rate of access to the 2 types of traces, but rather to the higher asymptotic level of stored information for words learned via elaborative rehearsal. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The molecular biology of neuronal nicotinic acetylcholine receptors

Two experiments were performed to evaluate the effects of three different elaborative activities on concept learning. Experiment 1 consisted of 60 undergraduates, while Experiment 2 consisted of 54 undergraduates. In both experiments, subjects studied a passage which asked them to create personal examples of the target concepts, contrast the target concepts, or expand on the effects of the target concepts. Subjects took a criterion test which consisted of recall of concept definitions and teaching examples, classification of novel examples, and problem solving scenarios. In both experiments, the condition which asked subjects to contrast the target concepts produced significantly better performance than the other two conditions. Possible explanations focus on: (1) the degree to which the different elaborative activities influence the richness and/or distinctiveness of the encoded information, and (2) the relation among the focus of the elaborative activity, the experimental text, and the measured criterion outcomes.     

Elaborative inferences during reading: Do they occur on-line?

Four experiments were conducted to examine the extent to which readers construct elaborative inferences on-line during reading. In Experiment 1, gaze durations were measured while subjects read anaphors to target antecedents that referenced a particular category member either explicitly or implicitly. When the context strongly suggested a particular category member, gaze durations on an anaphor were the same following either an implicit or an explicit antecedent. When the context did not suggest any particular category member, gaze durations were significantly longer following an implicit antecedent. The results confirmed that, with sufficient context, readers will generate a simple elaborative inference on-line. These results were replicated in Experiment 2 in which the materials did not strongly signal the inference but a sentence designed to encourage subjects to infer was included. In Experiment 3, this "demand sentence" was not included, and readers did not appear to construct the targeted inference. The results of Experiment 4 confirmed that once generated, elaborative inferences are stored as part of the long-term-memory representation of a passage. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Role of elaborative and perceptual integrative processes in perceptual-motor performance.

Three experiments address the dependence of both explicit and implicit memory performance on elaborative processes for a perceptual-motor task, pursuit rotor. Explicit memory performance was reflected by recognition of previously encountered pursuit rotor stimuli. Implicit memory performance (priming) was identified in Exp 1 as an advantage in pursuit rotor performance for old stimuli that Ss failed to explicitly recognize. In Exps 2 and 3, the types of strategies that Ss engaged in during training and test phases were manipulated. Results indicated that explicit memory performance depended on elaborative processes that emphasized which specific stimuli were encountered, whereas reliable implicit memory performance appeared only under a control no-instruction condition. Discussion focuses on attention to perceptual-integrative processes for priming. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Picture memory: Recognizing added and deleted details.

When people are presented simple and complex pictures and then tested in a same–changed recognition test with a simple or complex form of each, d′ is greater for the simple than the complex picture (Pezdek & Chen, 1982). The results of three experiments confirm the robustness of this "asymmetric confusability effect" and test a model of the processes underlying this effect. According to the model, pictures are schematically encoded such that the memory representation of both simple and complex pictures is similar to the simple form of each. In Experiment 1, a sentence was presented that described the central schema in the picture prior to subjects' viewing each picture. This manipulation exaggerated the asymmetric confusability effect; schematic processing thus underlies the effect. Results of Experiment 2 refute the hypothesis that the effect results from subjects erroneously anticipating a recall test rather than a recognition test. Furthermore, although some of the nonschematic elaborative information in complex pictures is stored in memory, it is difficult to retrieve to verify that something is missing when complex presentation pictures are changed to simple test pictures (Experiment 3). Thus, although people are able to distinguish large sets of old pictures from new distractor pictures, their ability to detect missing elaborative visual details is more limited. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Flexibility in scanning described images.

Two experiments investigated why past research has shown that described images lead to the typical increase in reaction time (RT) with increasing memory set size (m), but undescribed images do not. Experiment 1 used ms 6 through 8. A described image group showed a linear relation between m and RT up to a m of 6, and no increase in RT thereafter. A story group (which was asked to tell a brief story for words in a memory set) and a repetition group showed a linear relation between m and RT throughout the range of ms, whereas an image group showed no relation between m and RT. Experiment 2 essentially replicated the first experiment but manipulated memory strategy as a within subject variable. Similar results were found. The apparent change from "serial" to "parallel" processing by the described image groups in both studies reinforces the notion of flexibility in processing, particularly when multiple representations are formed or when multiple encoding strategies are used. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Elaborative and integrative thought processes in mathematics learning.

We investigated the effects on achievement and retention of having students complete mathematics seatwork that required them to engage in elaborative and integrative processing. Fifth-grade students (N?=?121) were assigned randomly within class to a cognitive-process treatment group, a fact-sheet group, or a control group. The seatwork problems of cognitive-process students included "prequestions" that required them to analyze, compare, and define problem information before answering a computational or conceptual exercise or story problem. These questions were designed to facilitate interconnection of the measurement knowledge being learned. Students were taught an 8-day mathematics unit in measurement by their regular teachers. Students completed achievement and retention tests of memory and understanding of measurement and were asked about their thought processes. Results showed that the cognitive process treatment had more beneficial effects on the achievement of higher ability students than of lower ability students. Comparisons involving only students who performed substantial amounts of experimental processing during seatwork provided evidence for the usefulness of elaborative and integrative processing for memory-based performance. Students' reports of processing were related to better memory and understanding scores on the tests. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Modality specificity of implicit memory for new associations.

In previous research we demonstrated that newly acquired associations between unrelated word pairs influence the magnitude of priming effects on word-completion tests. This phenomenon of implicit memory for new associations is observed only following semantic study elaboration. The present experiments reveal that implicit memory for new associations, though elaboration dependent, is also modality specific: Associative effects on a visual word-completion test were consistently reduced by study-test modality shifts. In contrast, explicit memory for new associations, as indexed by cued-recall performance, was uninfluenced by modality shifts. The modality effect on completion performance was eliminated when subjects were given brief visual preexposures to, or were required to construct visual images of, word pairs presented in auditory study conditions. The results pose a theoretical puzzle insofar as they indicate that within the domain of implicit memory, access to the products of elaborative processing depends on modality-specific, sensory-perceptual processing. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Musical imagery: Generation of tones and chords.

Four experiments are reported that examine Ss' ability to form and use images of tones and chords. In Exps 1 and 3, Ss heard a cue tone or chord and formed an image of a tone or chord one whole step in pitch above the cue. This image was then compared to a probe tone or chord that was either the same as the image in pitch, different from the image in pitch and harmonically closely related, or different and harmonically distantly related. In Exp 3, a random-tone mask was used to control for possible contributions of the cue in echoic memory. In both experiments tone images were formed faster than chord images, a result consistent with the idea of structural complexity as a determinant of image formation time. Response times and accuracy rates were found to parallel results found in music perception studies, results consistent with the idea of shared mechanisms in the processing of musical images and percepts. Exps 2 and 4 were control experiments examining the possible influence of demand characteristics and Ss' knowledge. Findings rule out the possibility that demand characteristics and Ss' knowledge were solely responsible for the results of Exps 1 and 3 and support the role of imagery. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)