Age differences in incidental learning.

Examined the effects of age and of incidental-learning tasks on recall of a categorized word list. Ss were 50 18-30 yr old college students and 50 55-65 yr old teachers. The control groups were instructed to remember the words; incidental-learning groups performed orienting tasks, but were not informed that they would have to recall the words. 2 orienting tasks required that Ss process the meaning of the words; the other 2 orienting tasks did not involve semantic processing. Analysis of the free-recall data indicates that the semantic processing tasks led to much greater recall and organization of recall than the nonsemantic orienting tasks. In recall, there was a significant interaction between age and orienting task, with old Ss only manifesting incidental learning that was inferior to young Ss, whose orienting task involved semantic processing. The findings indicate that the presence or absence of an age-related decrement in incidental learning is predictable from the depth of processing of the incidentally acquired material. (23 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Children's use of the keyword method to learn simple Spanish vocabulary words.

Assessed children's ability to use a mnemonic procedure to learn foreign language vocabulary, the keyword method, using 107 2nd and 5th graders as Ss. To remember a foreign word translation, the keyword method user (a) associates the foreign word to an English word (the keyword) that sounds like part of the foreign word, and (b) remembers a picture of the keyword and translation referents interacting. Ss who were instructed in keyword method use and provided with interactive pictures for each vocabulary item remembered more simple Spanish vocabulary translations than did control Ss not instructed to use the keyword method. Learning the acoustic links without a keyword method instruction did not improve vocabulary learning. (18 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Activation of semantic and phonological codes during reading.

Examined coding processes involved in reading connected text in 3 experiments with 54 Ss who read text passages and occasionally responded to lexical-decision probes. Exp I focused on semantic and surface codes. Results suggest that the activation of semantic codes increased over time, whereas surface codes did not. In addition, Ss who were instructed to remember the exact wording of the passages showed stronger activation of surface codes than did Ss who read for comprehension. Exps II and III explored the role of phonological codes in reading. Results from Exp II indicate that phonological codes were activated by specific words in a passage; however, Exp III results fail to demonstrate that phonological codes were activated by the more general passage context. Combined results suggest that reading involves several coding systems that are activated according to time and reading instruction constraints. (35 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

An effective method for building meaning vocabulary in primary grades.

Teaching vocabulary to primary grade children is essential. Previous studies of teaching vocabulary (word meanings) using story books in the primary grades reported gains of 20%-25% of word meanings taught. The present studies concern possible influences on word meaning acquisition during instruction (Study 1) and increasing the percentage and number of word meanings acquired (Study 2). Both studies were conducted in a working-class school with approximately 50% English-language learners. The regular classroom teachers worked with their whole classes in these studies. In Study 1, average gains of 12% of word meanings were obtained using repeated reading. Adding word explanations added a 10% gain for a total gain of 22%. Pretesting had no effect on gains. In Study 2, results showed learning of 41% of word meanings taught. At this rate of learning word meanings taught, it would be possible for children to learn 400 word meanings a year if 1,000 word meanings were taught. The feasibility of teaching vocabulary to primary grade children is discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of alphabet-letter instruction on young children's word recognition.

This study examined the influence of letter-name instruction on beginning word recognition. Thirty-three preschool children from low-socioeconomic-status families participated in 16 weeks of letter-name or comprehension-focused instruction. After instruction, children's ability to learn 3 types of word spellings was examined: words phonetically spelled with letters children had been taught (e.g., BL for ball), words phonetically spelled with letters children had not been taught, and words with visually distinct letter spellings that were nonphonetic. Children who received letter-name instruction learned words phonetically spelled with letters included in instruction significantly better than other words. Children receiving comprehension instruction performed significantly better on visually distinct word spellings. Results demonstrate the beneficial effects of alphabet-letter instruction on beginning phonetic word recognition. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Comprehension of texts with unfamiliar versus recently taught words: Assessment of alternative models.

Used modeling data from a study of M. G. McKeown et al (1983) in which approximately 160 4th graders recalled texts containing words that were either unfamiliar or recently taught to them through an intensive vocabulary instruction program. A suppression model, in which incomplete representations of propositions containing unfamiliar words were used during processing, predicted the pattern of recall of texts containing 11% unfamiliar words better than did a substitution model, in which propositions that contained only familiar words were substituted for those that contained unfamiliar words. A remind model, in which instructed words received additional processing, predicted the pattern of recall of texts containing 11% instructed words better than did a normal model, in which propositions that contained instructed words were processed in the same way as were propositions containing only familiar words. It is suggested that learning words through well-designed, direct instruction makes the instructed words salient and results in a greater ability to use the instructed rather than familiar words during comprehension. (30 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Abstract word deficits in aphasia: Evidence from semantic priming.

J.G. and D.E. are nonfluent aphasic patients who appear to have selective problems with abstract words on a variety of standard tests. Such a pattern would normally be interpreted as indicating a central semantic deficit for abstract words. The authors show that this is not the case by means of a semantic priming task that tests for implicit knowledge of the meanings of abstract and concrete words. Spoken word pairs that were either abstract or concrete synonyms (e.g., street-road or luck-chance) were presented; both Ss showed priming for the abstract and concrete pairs. The researchers followed up by asking the Ss to produce definitions to spoken abstract and concrete words; these definitions were also normal. The priming and definition data suggest that the semantic representations of abstract words in these Ss were relatively unimpaired. The researchers found that the Ss have problems only with spoken abstract words in just those tasks where normal controls also have difficulty. In contrast, they clearly have deficits in reading abstract words aloud, which may be due to problems with output phonology. Implications of these data for claims concerning hemispheric differences in the representation of abstract and concrete words are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Keyword and context instruction of new vocabulary meanings: Effects on text comprehension and memory.

New vocabulary was taught by one of three methods: keyword, semantic context, and no-strategy control. The semantic context method involved presenting subjects verbal contexts from which they might infer the meanings of the words, followed by explicit provision of the definitions. After a vocabulary definition acquisition phase, subjects in all conditions read a text in which some of the newly acquired vocabulary was embedded, with half of the texts providing richer contextual clues to the meaning of the target items (embellished text) than the other texts (unembellished text). Reading times did not differ as a function of acquisition condition, nor did one acquisition condition consistently elicit better performance than the others across text comprehension/memory measures. The one significant difference in comprehension favored the keyword method. The usual superiority of the keyword method for recall of definitions given vocabulary items was also replicated. Despite theoretically motivated concerns that keyword-method acquisition of definitions might inhibit comprehension of vocabulary in discourse relative to a semantic context method, none of the reaction time (RT) or performance analyses reported here supported those hypotheses. A subsidiary finding was that test text embellishments increased comprehension (as indexed by recall measures), a result suggesting that certain kinds of contextual support can enhance comprehension of "new" vocabulary. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Functional mapping of human memory using PET: Comparisons of conceptual and perceptual tasks.

Tested whether different neurological regions subserved the conceptual and perceptual memory components by using positron emission tomography (PET). Regional cerebral blood flow (RCBF) of 14 Ss (mean age 25 yrs) during 2 conceptual tasks of semantic cued recall and semantic association was compared to a control condition in which Ss made semantic associations to nonstudied words. RCBF during 2 perceptual tasks of word fragment cued recall and word fragment completion was also compared to a word fragment nonstudied control condition. There were clear dissociations in RCBF that reflected differences in brain regions subserving the 2 types of memory processes. Conceptual processing produced more activation in the left frontal and temporal cortex and the lateral aspect of the bilateral inferior parietal lobule. Perceptual memory processing activated the right frontal and temporal cortex and the bilateral posterior areas. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Lexical familiarity and processing efficiency: Individual differences in naming, lexical decision, and semantic categorization.

College students were separated into 2 groups (high and low) on the basis of 3 measures: subjective familiarity ratings of words, self-reported language experiences, and a test of vocabulary knowledge. Three experiments were conducted to determine if the groups also differed in visual word naming, lexical decision, and semantic categorization. High Ss were consistently faster than low Ss in naming visually presented words. They were also faster and more accurate in making difficult lexical decisions and in rejecting homophone foils in semantic categorization. Taken together, the results demonstrate that Ss who differ in lexical familiarity also differ in processing efficiency. The relationship between processing efficiency and working memory accounts of individual differences in language processing is also discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Adding a vocabulary component to incremental rehearsal to enhance retention and generalization.

The current study investigates the effect of adding a semantic component, in the form of vocabulary, to the incremental rehearsal (IR) procedure. Sixty-one second- and third-grade students in a suburban elementary school were randomly assigned to one of two conditions: IR or IR with vocabulary. Each participant was taught seven previously unknown words; participants were also taught the word's definition within the vocabulary condition. Retention and generalization were assessed one week later. Participants in the vocabulary condition retained and generalized significantly more words than participants in the IR only condition. Future studies should investigate effect of vocabulary integration in other reading interventions as well as the effect of vocabulary integration on reading fluency and passage comprehension. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Individual Differences in the Inference of Word Meanings From Context: The Influence of Reading Comprehension, Vocabulary Knowledge, and Memory Capacity.

Two studies investigated the ability to use contextual information in stories to infer the meanings of novel vocabulary by 9-10-year-olds with good and poor reading comprehension. Across studies, children with poor reading comprehension were impaired when the processing demands of the task were greatest. In Study 2, working memory capacity was related to performance, but short-term memory span and memory for the literal content of the text were not. Children with poor reading comprehension were not impaired in learning novel vocabulary taught through direct instruction, but children with both weak reading comprehension and vocabulary were. Implications for the relation between vocabulary development and text comprehension are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Interspersed postpassage questions and reading comprehension achievement.

Examined the effect of interspersed postpassage questions on reading comprehension of 54 2nd graders classified as having top, middle, or lower 3rd entering reading level. Ss were either instructed in the use of questions or taught reading in a regular fashion. Results from the Reading Comprehension subtest of the SRA Achievement Series show that although questioning instruction had little effect on the above average readers, both normal and below average readers made significant gains in comprehension when instructed in the use of postpassage questions. (5 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Growth of reading vocabulary in diverse elementary schools: Decoding and word meaning.

The authors charted growth of reading vocabulary for first- through fourth-grade students at three dissimilar elementary schools: School A, a suburban school enrolling White students who spoke standard English; School B, an inner-city school enrolling Black, dialect-speaking students; and School C, a semirural school enrolling economically disadvantaged, dialect-speaking Asian/Pacific students. Multiple-choice and interview tests showed rapid growth of reading vocabulary to an impressive size for all students. However, mainstream (School A) students had larger reading vocabularies, decoded more words, and knew more word meanings than the disadvantaged students at Schools B and C. The gap between mainstream and disadvantaged students was largest for infrequent words. The data suggest that direct instruction in decoding and/or individual word meanings could play a limited role in assisting minority students. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychopathology and semantic interpretation of ambiguous words.

Used homograph measures of vocabulary and semantic interpretation to test theories of language disorder in 44 schizophrenics and 11 aphasics. Aphasics showed a loss of abstract vocabulary, but this did not appreciably affect their interpretation of word meanings in sentences. The raw performance of the schizophrenics was consistently worse than the controls' and better than the aphasics', despite comparability among the groups in education and verbal intelligence. However, there was no evidence of concretistic regression in any of the language measures of the schizophrenics. Schizophrenics were somewhat more inclined than controls to select primary meanings (strongest mediating responses) for ambiguous words in sentences, but this was not attributable to lack of knowledge of secondary meanings. Results were consistent with L. J. Chapman's theory of primacy bias in schizophrenia. (19 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Use of semantic context by patients with Alzheimer's disease.

Used semantic-priming procedures to examine limitations in the use of semantic context by 18 patients (mean age 68.9 yrs) with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and to determine whether any such contextual effects were mediated solely through automatic processes or whether attentional processes were also involved. Three tasks were applied to examine the effect of semantic context on the performance of 18 normal elderly Ss (mean age 67.2 yrs), 18 normal young Ss (mean age 24.1 yrs), and the AD Ss. When normal and AD Ss were asked to decide whether a given item was a member of a certain category, their response times were equally affected by the item's dominance in the category. The time that AD Ss took to recognize a word was actually affected more by the semantic context provided by a priming sentence than was that of normal Ss. When asked to generate the final word of an incomplete sentence, AD Ss performed very poorly unless potential responses were highly constrained by sentence context. (31 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Word associations in old age: Evidence for consistency in semantic encoding during adulthood.

Word associations of 80 young (aged 17–33 yrs) and 80 older (aged 62–87 yrs) adults were compared for 113 stimulus words. Results indicate that the proportion of paradigmatic responses varied with the grammatical class of the stimulus word and with the vocabulary level of the S, but not with age. The same proportion of young and older Ss gave the most common responses. Although older Ss had a greater number of unique responses, this seemed to reflect age differences in vocabulary level, as vocabulary but not age was a good predictor. Within-S variability was also comparable across age, as on a retest young and older Ss gave the same proportion of responses that were identical to those on the original test. Both age groups were more likely to repeat common than uncommon responses on the retest. It is concluded that this, together with analyses of response latency, suggests equivalent use of strategic processes across age. The results indicate that semantic structure and semantic encoding in adults are related to verbal ability, but not to age. (49 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Decomposition of repetition priming processes in word translation.

Translation in fluent bilinguals requires comprehension of a stimulus word and subsequent production, or retrieval and articulation, of the response word. Four repetition-priming experiments with Spanish–English bilinguals (N = 274) decomposed these processes using selective facilitation to evaluate their unique priming contributions and factorial combination to evaluate the degree of process overlap or dependence. In Experiment 1, symmetric priming between semantic classification and translation tasks indicated that bilinguals do not covertly translate words during semantic classification. In Experiments 2 and 3, semantic classification of words and word-cued picture drawing facilitated word-comprehension processes of translation, and picture naming facilitated word-production processes. These effects were independent, consistent with a sequential model and with the conclusion that neither semantic classification nor word-cued picture drawing elicits covert translation. Experiment 4 showed that 2 tasks involving word-retrieval processes—written word translation and picture naming—had subadditive effects on later translation. Incomplete transfer from written translation to spoken translation indicated that preparation for articulation also benefited from repetition in the less-fluent language. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive changes during conceptually based instruction on decimal fractions.

Students develop competence with written mathematical symbol systems through the sequential and cumulative acquisition of several distinct cognitive processes. The inital processes develop the quantitative meaning of the symbols and the rules for operating with them. It is hypothesized that if instruction is designed to promote these processes, students will acquire them, use them to solve the instructed tasks, and transfer them to novel tasks. These studies examined the hypothesis in the context of whole-classroom instruction. Two classes of 4th-grade children participated in the study. The evidence suggests that students with varying levels of achievement can construct meanings for mathematical symbols and can use these meanings to solve both instructed and novel tasks. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Encoding, retrieval, main effects and interactions: Were Lockhart and Craik (1990) on the level?

Investigated whether a main effect of encoding emerges when retrieval tests are equated for difficulty. 132 introductory psychology students were tested in 2 experiments. Ss encoded words semantically or by rhyme, and then judged whether unstudied words were related to studied words. A list structure (L. Jacoby, 1975) was adapted to remove the overall difference in difficulty across semantic and rhyme retrieval tasks. Results indicate no main effect of retrieval task, and the main effect of encoding was not dependent on the retrieval task. Semantic encoding led to a greater likelihood that Ss would judge an unstudied word to be related to a studied word. It was concluded that test words shared either a semantic or a rhyme relation with studied words, the advantage of semantic encoding was not dependent on the retrieval criterion. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)