Mnemotechnics in second-language learning.

Discusses the author's keyword method, a mnemonic aid for vocabulary learning. According to this method, a foreign word is connected to its English translation by a chain of 2 links-similarity in sound (acoustic link) and a mental image of the interaction between the 2 words (imagery link). Experiments using Russian and Spanish vocabularies are described to illustrate that the keyword method produces significantly greater vocabulary recall than the rote-rehearsal method of second-language learning. Results also suggest that (a) providing the keywords for the S is better than having him generate his own keywords, (b) imagery instructions have a significant advantage over sentence-generation instructions when the keyword method is used, (c) the keyword method does not affect word retrieval times, and (d) the keyword method produces significantly better backward associations than the rote-rehearsal method. Problems in the application of the method are considered. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mnemonic techniques in second-language learning.

Reviews methods, results, and various issues associated with the use of mnemonic techniques in 2nd-language learning. The historical background of mnemonic techniques in 2nd-language learning is reviewed. Two specific imagery-based mnemonics, the keyword and the hook techniques are described with a review of empirical evidence for their effectiveness. Various theoretical interpretations of the effects of the 2 mnemonic techniques on 2nd-language learning are discussed. Practical implications of such research for the problem of transfer of learning to naturalistic situations, the generalizability of current empirical findings and procedures to other types of verbal materials, and extensions to settings other than the experimental laboratory, (e.g., the classrooms) are discussed. (64 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effects of concurrent verbal and visual tasks on category learning.

Current theories of category learning posit separate verbal and nonverbal learning systems. Past research suggests that the verbal system relies on verbal working memory and executive functioning and learns rule-defined categories; the nonverbal system does not rely on verbal working memory and learns non-rule-defined categories (E. M. Waldron & F. G. Ashby, 2001; D. Zeithamova & W. T. Maddox, 2006). However, relatively little research has explored the importance of visual working memory or visual processing for either system. The authors investigated the role of working memory (Experiment 1a and 1b), visual processing (Experiment 2), and executive functioning for each system, using a concurrent task methodology. It was found that visual tasks with high executive functioning demands and verbal tasks with high or low executive demands disrupted rule-defined learning, whereas any visual task, regardless of executive functioning demand, disrupted non-rule-defined learning. Taken together, these results confirm the importance of verbal working memory and executive functioning for the verbal system and provide new evidence for the importance of visual processing for the nonverbal system. These results help to clarify understanding of the nonverbal system and have implications for multiple systems theories of category learning (F. G. Ashby, L. A. Alfonso-Reese, A. U. Turken, & E. M. Waldron, 1998). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Hypnosis and verbal learning.

Rigidly standardized hypnotic procedures were used in a double-blind experiment which examined the acquisition ability of Ss who differed in hypnotic susceptibility for the learning of both meaningful (poems) and meaningless (nonsense syllables) material when hypnotized and when unhypnotized. Regression analyses indicated that: (a) Differences in relative degree of hypnotic susceptibility among Ss did not influence the learning of nonsense syllables or poems; (b) S's degree of manifest anxiety and verbal intelligence did not contribute significantly to performance scores; and most important, (c) the application of hypnosis did not significantly influence performance on either nonsense syllables or poems when compared to performance in the unhypnotized treatment. (22 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Anxiety and verbal learning.

3 groups, differing in anxiety, learned 2 different types of paired-associate materials and then half of each anxiety group were tested under "immediate" and half under "delay" conditions of intertrial spacing. The first 2 groups were college students selected from extreme scorers on the Taylor Manifest Anxiety Scale and the third group was composed of hospitalized anxious patients. "Among the students, the high and low groups, tested under both delay and immediate conditions, showed no significant differences in their learning of the word-associate material. With the more novel and difficult false equations, however, the high anxiety Ss learned significantly less over all and showed a somewhat slower rate of learning from trial to trial. Among the patients, those tested under the delay condition performed about as well as the high-anxiety students, while those under the immediate condition learned a lesser amount both of the word and equation materials." 19 references. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Age differences in verbal learning.

"An old and a young group of Ss, mean ages 78.1 and 26.8 years, were given 3 paired-associate learning tasks which differed in the degree to which prior experience might be expected to facilitate or block present learning. They consisted of: (a) Familiar word pairs, (b) nonsense equations, and (c) false equations. Both groups performed best on the word-associate task, but there was little difference between the learning of nonsense and false equations within either group. On all 3 procedures the old group was significantly poorer, but they were proportionately more deficient in the learning of materials in which the facilitative effects of prior experience are minimized, i.e., the 2 forms of equations. However, they had no greater difficulty with the interference than with the nonsense material." 16 references. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Projective methods and verbal learning.

"This experiment investigated the question of whether some methods of measuring verbal learning were more sensitive than others in revealing the effects of frequency and consequence. It was found that the effects of frequency were homologous, regardless of the test used to measure verbal learning. The methods were not equivalent in revealing the effects of consequence (reward and punishment). The more difficult the particular test used to measure verbal learning, the lower was S's absolute score and the more likely to appear were the effects of reward and punishment." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Signaling as a cognitive guide in multimedia learning.

In 3 experiments, students received a short science lesson on how airplanes achieve lift and then were asked to write an explanation (retention test) and to write solutions to 5 problems, such as how to design an airplane to achieve lift more rapidly (transfer test). For some students, the lesson contained signals, including a preview summary paragraph outlining the 3 main steps involved in lift, section headings, and pointer words such as because or as a result. The signaling did not add any additional content information about lift but helped clarify the structure of the passage. Students who received signaling generated significantly more solutions on the transfer test than did students who did not receive signaling when the explanation was presented as printed text (Experiment 1), spoken text (Experiment 2), and spoken text with corresponding animation (Experiment 3). Results are consistent with a knowledge construction view of multimedia learning in which learners seek to build mental models of cause-and-effect systems. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Interpreting visual preferences in the visual paired-comparison task.

Performance on the visual paired-comparison (VPC) task has typically been interpreted with E. Sokolov's (1963) comparator model of the orienting response; novelty preferences are interpreted as evidence of retention, whereas null preferences are interpreted as evidence of forgetting. Here the authors capitalized on the verbal nature of human adults to clarify the interpretation of visual preferences in VPC performance. In 2 experiments, adults were tested on either the VPC task or a forced-choice recognition task after delays of 3 min to 12 months. In Experiment 1, adults tested on the VPC task exhibited novelty preferences after short delays, null preferences after intermediate delays, and familiarity preferences after long delays. In Experiment 2, adults tested on the forced-choice recognition task exhibited high levels of accuracy irrespective of delay, but the latency with which they recognized the stimuli increased systematically over the retention interval. These data are inconsistent with a simple Sokolovian interpretation of VPC performance and instead suggest that memory may be expressed as a novelty preference, null preference, or familiarity preference depending on the accessibility of the representation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Research on visual word recognition: From verbal learning to parallel distributed processing.

Over the past 30 yrs, research on visual word recognition has contributed greatly to the understanding of how information is processed, represented, and accessed in the cognitive system. Today, word recognition continues to serve as a rich domain for modelling and investigating core issues in cognition. In addition, research on word recognition has been used to improve assessment and instruction of reading for children and adults. This article provides a brief overview of some trends and developments in word recognition research over the past few decades. This overview is not meant to be exhaustive (or unbiased); it is intended to give readers from outside the area a feel for why word recognition is such an important domain for cognitive research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Anticipation interval and age differences in verbal learning.

Age differences were demonstrated to be greater at the shorter anticipation interval than at the longer in 2 paired-associate studies. Earlier work had suggested that this age-pace interaction was not a true learning effect but a performance deficit due to the difficulty the older person has in responding rapidly. The 2nd study provided evidence that relatively few of the errors made by the old Ss at the fast pace could be attributed to insufficient time to emit a learned response. Even when Ss were permitted to take as much time as needed to respond, the age-pace interaction was found. Several possible explanations for such a learning deficit were noted. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

When less is more: Meaningful learning from visual and verbal summaries of science textbook lessons.

In a series of 3 experiments, college students who read a summary that contained a sequence of short captions with simple illustrations depicting the main steps in the process of lightning recalled these steps and solved transfer problems as well as or better than students who received the full text along with the summary or the full text alone. In Experiment 2, taking away the illustrations or the captions eliminated the effectiveness of the summary. In Experiment 3, adding text to the summary reduced its effectiveness. Implications for a cognitive theory of multimedia learning are discussed; implications for instructional design pertain to the need for conciseness, coherence, and coordination in presenting scientific explanations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Extraversion, verbal learning, and memory.

Reviews the literature relating extraversion and human learning and memory. There appear to be several replicable differences in learning and memory between introverts and extraverts. Current theorizing emphasizes the concept of arousal and indicates that most of the obtained results are consistent with the notion that introverts are more chronically aroused than extraverts. While this approach appears to be a valuable one, several difficulties with such theorizing are noted. A major inadequacy in the work in this area is seen as the relative failure to use current advances in our understanding of the processes of storage and retrieval in the design of experiments and the subsequent interpretation of the results. (21/2 p ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

EPPS n Achievement and verbal paired-associates learning.

"In the present study, performance on two lists of verbal paired-associates learning materials is used to examine the role of n Achievement as a possible drive variable… . Ss high in EPPS n Achievement demonstrated significant superiority over low n Achievers in… verbal learning situations." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Retroactive and proactive inhibition of verbal learning.

All studies dealing with the retroactive inhibition (RI) and proactive inhibition (PI) of verbal learning from 1941 to 1959 are discussed under the general headings: Degree of Acquisition, Similarity of Materials, Extrinsic Factors, Temporal Effects, and Major Theoretical Positions. Relatively little change has occurred in the theoretical approaches to RI within the last 10 years. Research interest in PI in general has been lower than that for RI, thus leaving many questions unanswered. Some 18 pressing problems are enumerated. (110-item bibliogr.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Arousal effects on visual preferences in neonates.

Investigated the influence of arousal level on visual preferences by observing the looking preferences of 12 full-term neonates once in a more aroused condition (before feeding while unswaddled) and once in a less aroused condition (after feeding while swaddled). The stimuli were unpatterned light panels illuminated at temporal frequencies of 1, 2, 4, and 8 Hz. Significant linear relationships between amount of looking and stimulus frequency were found in both arousal conditions. However, the effects were in opposite directions in the 2 conditions. Ss looked more as temporal frequency increased when they were less aroused and looked less as temporal frequency increased when more aroused. Thus, even when awake and attending, infants' visual preferences vary systematically with changes in both internal and external amounts of stimulation such that there is an inverse relationship between level of arousal and preferred temporal frequency. (15 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Pictorial–verbal and analytic–holistic learning strategies in science learning.

Gave study instructions to 383 college students to investigate several learning strategies. All learners except those in the read-twice control were told to study a science chapter by either writing paraphrases or drawing pictures of the material. Additionally, some learners were told to be either analytic, by focusing on details, or holistic, by relating specifics to more inclusive concepts. Individual differences were assessed in verbal ability, pictorial ability, and preference for pictorial or verbal thinking. The study instructions successfully manipulated pictorial–verbal strategies but not analytic–holistic strategies, according to self-reports and judges' ratings. Results reveal weak effects favoring the drawing strategy for males and females and the holistic strategy for females only, but there were no significant interaction effects. (42 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Revising the redundancy principle in multimedia learning.

College students viewed a short multimedia PowerPoint presentation consisting of 16 narrated slides explaining lightning formation (Experiment 1) or 8 narrated slides explaining how a car's braking system works (Experiment 2). Each slide appeared for approximately 8-10 s and contained a diagram along with 1-2 sentences of narration spoken in a female voice. For some students (the redundant group), each slide also contained 2-3 printed words that were identical to the words in the narration, conveyed the main event described in the narration, and were placed next to the corresponding portion of the diagram. For other students (the nonredundant group), no on-screen text was presented. Results showed that the group whose presentation included short redundant phrases within the diagram outperformed the nonredundant group on a subsequent test of retention (d = 0.47 and 0.70, respectively) but not on transfer. Results are explained by R. E. Mayer's (2001, 2005a) cognitive theory of multimedia learning, in which the redundant text served to guide the learner's attention without priming extraneous processing. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Implicit learning of new verbal associations.

Implicit learning of a series of new verbal associations was studied in four experiments. The first two experiments demonstrated that learning of a repeating sequence of verbal stimuli may occur without awareness, but only when the stimulus–response mapping requires an attention-demanding activity: Subjects who were unaware of the sequence learned when instructed to categorize the stimuli, but not when instructed simply to read them. However, in both situations, unaware subjects performed no better than untrained control subjects in expressing their knowledge of the sequence explicitly. In Experiments 3 and 4, subjects showed implicit learning when the task involved either motor responses to verbal stimuli or verbal responses to spatially arranged stimuli. These findings are discussed in terms of the conditions under which implicit learning can be obtained. First, they demonstrate implicit learning of a set of new associations in the verbal domain. Second, the data suggest that attention is important in implicit learning. Finally, the degree of interitem organization that is familiar preexperimentally seems to partially determine the amount of implicit learning. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)