Pictures facilitate children's recall of unillustrated expository prose.

Four experiments investigated the effect of pictures on the recall of expository prose by 1st and 3rd graders. Exp 1 investigated whether pictures would facilitate recall of information presented both in the prose and in the picture (illustrated information) as well as information presented only in the prose (unillustrated information). Results showed that pictures facilitated children's recall of both illustrated and unillustrated information. Exp 2 replicated the effect for 1st graders with 2 types of unillustrated information: behavioral and physical attributes of unusual animals. Exp 3 again demonstrated that pictures facilitated recall of unillustrated information. This effect was not due to heightened or selective attention. Exp 4 examined whether the effect was restricted to unfamiliar topics. However, the facilitatory effect of pictures for unillustrated information occurred for passages about familiar and unfamiliar animals. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Text structure and children's comprehension and memory for expository material.

Investigated the effects of instruction focusing on text structure on 90 5th graders' comprehension and memory for expository material. In 2 experiments, instruction in a hierarchical summarization study strategy focusing on the organization of ideas in text was compared with the more conventional classroom procedure of answering questions after reading. In Exp I, the experimental instruction group had short-answer test scores as high as the conventional instruction group and recall and organization scores that were higher. Similar results were not found in Exp II, an attempt to replicate Exp I. Further analyses revealed that the differences between the studies may have been due to differences in Ss' ability to master the study strategy. It is concluded that even though instruction in a study strategy focusing on text structure can enhance elementary school students' memory for expository material, as is typically found in their content area textbooks, it seems that students must be able to perform the study strategy reasonably well before it will markedly improve their recall. (18 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Task demands and sentence comprehension in patients with dementia of the Alzheimer's type

Patients with dementia of the Alzheimer's type (DAT) and matched normal controls were given three tests of syntactic comprehension in which nonlinguistic visual and memory task demands were varied. In all tasks, subjects were presented spoken semantically reversible sentences with a variety of syntactic structures and required to match the sentence to a picture. In the first experiment, subjects matched the spoken sentence to one of two pictures that appeared either before or immediately following the presentation of the sentence. The target picture depicted the spoken sentence correctly and the foil depicted the reversed thematic roles to those in the sentence (i.e., it was a syntactic foil). The second experiment employed a sentence video-verification task in which subjects were required to determine if the spoken sentence matched a videotaped depiction of the action in the sentence or a syntactic foil. In the third experiment, in different conditions, subjects were required to determine whether the spoken sentence matched a single picture or to choose the picture that matched the sentence from an array of two or three pictures. In this experiment, both lexical and syntactic foils were used. In all tasks, DAT patients were affected by the number of propositions in the presented sentence, but not by the syntactic complexity of the sentence. Control subjects also were unaffected by the syntactic complexity of the sentence; the number-of-proposition effect was present in some experiments in the control population. Comparison of performance across the one-, two-, and three-picture versions of the task showed that the magnitude of the effect of number of propositions increased as the number of pictures in the array increased. In addition, analysis of the data from each of the tasks separately showed that the effect of number of propositions only occurred when subjects were attempting to match the target to a syntactic foil (one-picture version) or to choose between the target and a syntactic foil (two- and three-picture versions). The results support the view that patients with DAT do not have disturbances affecting syntactic processing. In addition, they suggest that the effect of number of propositions arises at a stage of analysis that is partially separate from assigning sentence meaning, such as in holding a representation of the sentence in memory until the pictures can be analyzed and encoded and/or in comparing the results of the picture analysis with a stored representation of the sentence meaning.     

Comprehension-monitoring failure in skilled adult readers.

Examined whether monitoring failure or an illusion of knowing occurs when a reader's self-assessment of comprehension is high but an objective measure indicates comprehension failure. Unadulterated expository text was used. 48 undergraduates read either a difficult or an easy expository passage under instructions intended to elicit either deep processing or relatively shallow (but still semantic) processing. The illusion of knowing occurred primarily when the reading level of the passage was difficult and the instructions cued a relatively shallow level of processing. Ss who exhibited an illusion of knowing tended to have shown distortions in their passage summaries, whereas Ss who knew that they had failed to comprehend were more likely to have omitted information relevant to the main point. Findings provide a documentation of metacomprehension failure without the use of the contradiction paradigm. (16 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Elaboration and recall of main ideas in prose.

Examined the utility of an elaboration hypothesis as a means of specifying "depth of processing" in memory for prose and as a guide for the construction of adjunct questions. 85 undergraduate and graduate students served as Ss in 5 experiments. Exp I examined the effects of different numbers of propositions within paragraphs on the recall of major ideas. Exp II replicated the procedures of Exp I but varied the topography of the text. Exp III examined processing time as an alternative explanation for the results observed in Exps I and II. Exp IV investigated a redundancy hypothesis as an alternative to an elaboration hypothesis. Exp V employed a procedure originally developed to test the effects of adjunct aids requiring different levels of elaboration on recall of prose. The results of Exps I–IV support the elaboration hypothesis in predicting recall of main ideas in paragraphs. The results of Exp V support the utility of employing an elaboration hypothesis as a heuristic for the construction of adjunct questions. (38 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Conceptual automaticity in recognition memory: Levels-of-processing effects on familiarity.

Examined the effect of level of processing (LP) on recognition memory using 2 response-signal delays (RSD; 500 and 1500 msec). In Exp 1, LP (semantic or nonsemantic) and RSD were manipulated between 24 college students. In Exp 2, orienting task (pleasantness rating or letter judgment) and RSD were manipulated among 32 Ss. In Exp 3, study orientation and test instructions (inclusion or exclusion) were within-S factors, and RSD was a between-S factor. 32 Ss were included in Exp 3. In Exp 1, a modality effect was found for fast responses. The LP was reliable at both points in time. In Exp 2, fast responses were associated with significantly more "false-alarms" to words encoded semantically than those encoded nonsemantically. In Exp 3, both recollection and familiarity estimates were elevated by prior conceptual processing. Estimates of recollection were affected by RSD. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Note-taking, individual differences, and memory for lecture information.

Investigated the encoding function of note taking and processing differences between successful and less successful students in lecture situations in 2 experiments. In Exp I, 48 undergraduates either took notes or listened during a lecture. Different memory patterns were found for these 2 groups, with note-takers recalling many more high- than low-importance propositions and listeners recalling an equal number of high- and low-importance propositions. Results suggest that note taking enhanced organizational processing of lecture information. In Exp II, the notes and recall of 80 successful and less successful students were compared. Successful Ss recalled more of the most important propositions, but these 2 groups of Ss did not differ in their recall of less important propositions. For both groups of Ss, recall content was closely related to the content of the notes, with successful Ss recording more high-importance propositions in their notes. Also, successful and less successful Ss were similar in their note-taking styles and the degree to which they benefited from reviewing their notes. (17 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Intact text-specific reading skill in amnesia.

Amnesic patients were studied to determine whether the acquisition and retention of item-specific skills can be supported by nondeclarative (implicit) memory. In Exp 1, Ss read 2 different passages 3 times in succession. Reading speed improved at a similar rate in both amnesic patients and normal Ss and was specific to the text that was read. In Exp 2, amnesic patients and normal Ss read a passage 3 successive times and then reread the same passage after a 0-sec, 10-min, 2-hr, or 1-day delay. In both groups, facilitation persisted for at least 10 min and disappeared within 2 hrs. It is suggested that facilitated reading speed depends importantly on both semantic and perceptual information and that such information can be supported by nondeclarative memory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Processing of information in iconic memory: Differences between nonretarded and retarded subjects.

Compared iconic memory processes of 17 undergraduates and 18 retarded Ss (primarily aged 18–28 yrs; IQ 56–77) in 4 experiments. In Exp I, a partial report paradigm was used in which 6 retarded and 6 undergraduate Ss were presented 6 pictures under 4 intervals (0–500 msec). In Exp II, using 5 Ss in each group the same procedure as in Exp I was used but letters as well as pictures were included. Results show that although overall performance for retarded Ss was poor, they did better with letters than with pictures—a reverse of the finding with undergraduate Ss. In Exp III, 2 retarded Ss were given extended practice and incentive to perform well. Asymptote was reached in 10 days but never equaled performance of unpracticed undergraduates. In Exp IV, using 5 Ss in each group, information load was varied from 1 to 4 items, and a masking stimulus was used to interrupt processing following 6 intervals that lasted up to 250 msec. Results show that (1) there are quantitative differences between intelligence groups in iconic capacity; (2) retarded Ss process information more slowly, a difference that increases with increasing information load; and (3) there are substantive structural differences in iconic memory of retarded and nonretarded Ss. (35 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Prepassage questions: The influence of structural importance.

Compared the effects of prepassage questions quizzing information of different structural importance on 104 college students' memory for expository prose passages. In conditions in which information from a high-level passage unit was quizzed by the question, indirect recall (i.e., recall of nonquizzed information) was greater than recall in both low-level and no-question conditions. The low-question condition exceeded the no-question condition only when the analysis was limited to recall of superordinate information from the subtopic cluster containing the quizzed unit. Results indicate that questions that direct Ss' attention to material at the top of the organizational structure facilitate the effective encoding of the central organizational idea within the passage segment. A significant interaction was also found between Ss' Vocabulary Ability and Question Condition. The facilitative effect of high questions declined with increasing vocabulary ability. This interaction is consistent with the view that high- and low-ability people differ in their tendency to use the superordinate organizational structure of the passage and thus in their tendency to benefit from processing aids such as adjunct questions. (36 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

What causes children's failures to detect inconsistencies in text? Representation versus comparison difficulties.

Investigated whether elementary school children's difficulties in detecting inconsistencies in text are related to their failure to represent each of two inconsistent propositions in memory or to their failure to compare the representations of the inconsistent propositions to each other once each has been represented in memory. Three kinds of inconsistencies were considered: falsehoods (a textual proposition conflicts with a potentially known fact), factual contradictions (one textual proposition conflicts with another textual proposition, and one of these propositions is a potentially known fact), and textual contradictions (one textual proposition conflicts with a 2nd textual proposition, and neither is a known fact). In Exp I, 80 1st-, 3rd-, and 5th-grade children were asked to detect familiar falsehoods and unfamiliar factual contradictions in narratives. Results show that the familiar falsehoods were easier to detect than the unfamiliar factual contradictions. However, in Exp II with 30 1st graders, when the familiarity variable was controlled, no differences in inconsistency detection were observed among falsehoods, factual contradictions, and textual contradictions. Detection failures were related more to incomplete recall of the inconsistent information than to difficulty in comparing the inconsistent propositions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

When is an illustration worth ten thousand words?

In 3 experiments, students read expository passages concerning how scientific devices work, which contained either no illustrations (control), static illustrations of the device with labels for each part (parts), static illustrations of the device with labels for each major action (steps), or dynamic illustrations showing the "off" and "on" states of the device along with labels for each part and each major action (parts-and-steps). Results indicated that the parts-and-steps (but not the other) illustrations consistently improved performance on recall of conceptual (but not nonconceptual) information and creative problem solving (but not verbatim retention), and these results were obtained mainly for the low prior-knowledge (rather than the high prior-knowledge) students. The cognitive conditions for effective illustrations in scientific text include appropriate text, tests, illustrations, and learners. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Memory for pictures: Does an age-related decline exist?

Examined the effects of varying detail on memory. In Exp I, pictorial embellishment was varied by presenting 27 Ss aged 60+ yrs and 30 undergraduates with normal photographs, high-contrast photographs, or line drawings, and testing their memory immediately and 4 wks later. All of the Ss did best with the most elaborate pictures (normal photographs), and old Ss remembered as well as young at the immediate but not at the delayed interval. In Exp II, with 21 old Ss and 21 18–36 yr olds, detail was varied by adding background to line drawings of a central object. Ss of both ages profited from enhanced background detail, and there were no differences in memory as a function of age. Exp III replicated Exp II, except that Ss (10 elderly and 17 college students) studied the pictures under divided attention conditions. Again, Ss of both ages recognized elaborate pictures best, and no significant age differences emerged. Results suggest that old and young adults profit from visual embellishment and that memory for meaningful pictures remains relatively intact with age. (14 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of text structure on use of cognitive capacity during reading.

The demand that text processing imposes on learners' cognitive capacity was measured with a secondary-task technique; the meaning of the textual materials was held constant while several structural (surface) variables were manipulated. Exp I (36 undergraduates) showed that text versions with simplified vocabulary and syntax (but equivalent content) required less cognitive capacity to process than standard versions. Exp II (96 Ss) revealed that the reduction in use of cognitive capacity was due primarily to syntactic factors. Exp III (72 Ss) demonstrated that texts containing signals about idea importance and relations required less cognitive capacity to process than texts with approximately the same propositional content but no such signals. Measures of total inspection time and content recall were also secured. In general, findings indicate that aspects of the surface structure of text made demands on Ss' cognitive processing capacity. (44 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Topic overviews and processing of topic structure.

In 3 experiments, the authors investigated the information included in a topic overview that is accessed during reading. In each experiment, participants read on a computer, 3 expository passages that discussed 6 topics related to a common theme. The type of information found in the overview was manipulated. In all experiments, the presence of topic but not order information (i.e., order of topic appearance) led to faster topic sentence reading times regardless of whether participants read to glean general information from the passage or to attend specifically to the topic structure. Analyses of reading times on sentences indicating a shift in topic revealed that information about global passage structure was also encoded from the overview even in the absence of specific topic structure information. The General Discussion focuses on the type of information readers encoded from overviews as well as mechanisms by which overview information may be accessed during reading. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effects of age, illustrations, and task variables on the performance of procedural assembly tasks.

Older adults may be disadvantaged in the performance of procedural assembly tasks because of age-related declines in working memory operations. It was hypothesized that adding illustrations to instructional text may lessen age-related performance differences by minimizing processing demands on working memory in the elderly. In the present study, younger and older adults constructed a series of 3-dimensional objects from 3 types of instructions (text only, illustration only, or text and illustrations). Results indicated that instructions consisting of text and illustrations reduced errors in construction for both age groups compared with the other formats. Younger adults, however, outperformed older adults under all instructional format conditions. Measures of spatial and verbal working memory and text comprehension ability accounted for substantial age-related variance across the different format conditions but did not fully account for the age differences observed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 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)