Elaborative verbal rehearsals and college students' cognitive performance.

Two experiments were conducted to determine the potential of elaborative verbal rehearsal (EVR) as a learning strategy for high-risk college students. In Exp 1, a correlational inquiry was used to explore the relation between Ss' EVRs and their overall test performance. Sixty-four Ss studied an extended text, prepared an EVR, and then took the test. There were significant correlations between the quality of Ss' EVRs and their overall test performance. In Exp 2, 50 Ss were trained to produce either EVRs or verbatim rehearsals and then took the same test in immediate and delayed conditions. The EVR Ss performed significantly better on almost every variable. EVRs appear to be a powerful learning strategy for high-risk students. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Asymmetry of happiness and sadness in effects on memory in normal college students: Comment on Hasher, Rose, Zacks, Sanft, and Doren.

Research suggests that, whereas induced happiness tends to facilitate the recall of positive material, induced mild sadness often does not facilitate the recall of negative material symmetrically. These results are compatible with those reported by L. Hasher et al (see record 1986-03061-001) but also suggest that their failure to observe effects of mild depression on recall should not be overgeneralized to conclude that affective states other than mild sadness have negligible effects on cognitive processes. Possible mediators of these phenomena are discussed, and their potential relevance to the understanding of clinical depression and of the cognitive representation of various affective states is considered. (19 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive profiles of difficult-to-remediate and readily remediated poor readers: Early intervention as a vehicle for distinguishing between cognitive and experiential deficits as basic causes of specific reading disability.

Reading impaired first graders were given daily tutoring as a "first cut" diagnostic to aid in distinguishing between reading difficulties caused by basic cognitive deficits and those caused by experiential deficits. Reading achievement in most of these children was found to be within or above the average range after one semester of remediation. Children who were difficult to remediate performed below both children who were readily remediated and normal readers on kindergarten and first-grade tests evaluating phonological skills, but not on tests evaluating visual, semantic and syntactic skills. The results are consistent with convergent findings from previous research suggesting that reading problems in some poor readers may be caused primarily by phonological deficits. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive operations and the generation effect.

The present experiments were designed to test a cognitive operations hypothesis of the generation effect, or memorial advantage for stimuli that are generated rather than simply read. In two experiments two aspects of generation were manipulated independently: (a) whether the to-be-remembered stimulus was absent (and therefore produced by the subject) or present (and therefore not produced) and (b) whether the relevant cognitive operations were performed by the subject or were instead performed by another agent. Specifically, subjects were given simple multiplication problems with the answers either absent or present in the original problems and with the calculations performed either by themselves or by another agent (either the experimenter or a calculator). The first experiment tested immediate recall of the answers, and the second experiment tested both recall and recognition of the answers after retention intervals up to a week. In all cases, a highly significant retention advantage was found for the tasks requiring multiplication operations by the subjects themselves as opposed to another agent, but there was no main effect for whether the answer was absent or present in the original problem. We discuss the theoretical implications of these results with respect to the generation effect as well as the practical implications with respect to using a calculator in learning the multiplication facts. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Affect, accessibility of material in memory, and behavior: A cognitive loop?

Conducted 2 studies to investigate the effect of good mood on cognitive processes. In Exp I, which was conducted in a shopping mall, a positive feeling state was induced by giving Ss a free gift; good mood, thus induced, was found to improve Ss' evaluations of the performance and service records of products they owned. In Exp II, with 47 undergraduates, affect was induced by having Ss win or lose a computer game in a laboratory setting; Ss who had won the game were better able to recall positive material in memory. Results are discussed in terms of the effect that feelings have accessibility of cognitions. In addition, the nature of affect and the relationship between good mood and behavior (such as helping) are discussed in terms of this proposed cognitive process. (38 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Studies on a new method of preparation of zinc sulphide useful for luminescent phosphors

Hitherto the zinc sulphide material required for luminescent phosphors has usually been obtained by the reaction between a zinc salt and hydrogen sulphide. In this paper we report a new method of preparation of zinc sulphide by the reaction between thiourea and a zinc salt in an alkaline medium, at optimum conditions of pH. The zinc sulphide precipitate obtained under varying conditions of pH has been characterized by the methods of X-ray diffraction, electron microscopy and diffraction, optical microscopy, magnetic susceptibility, diffuse reflectance and density. A very important point which came out of these investigations is that with varying pH for the precipitating conditions, varying degrees of non-stoichiometry have been obtained. All these aspects have been discussed in terms of interstitial zinc atoms or Zn⁺ ions and electrons in anion vacancies.     

Knowing, liking, and judged problem severity in relation to referral and outcome measures in a school-based intervention program.

Teachers, as referral agents, and nonprofessional child aides, as interventionists, rated 709 kindergartners-6th graders seen in a school-based mental health program for how well they were known by teachers and child aides, how much they were liked by them, and how serious their problems were. All evaluation measures derived from 3 instruments--the AML (which measures Acting Out, Moodiness and Withdrawal, and Learning Problems), the Teacher Referral Form, and the Aide Status Evaluation Form. Several interconnected studies describe the ratings' properties and stability, how they differed across demographic groups, and how they related to indexes of referral status, termination status, and improvement. Better liked children and those seen initially as having less severe problems had healthier referral and termination profiles and were judged to have improved more in the program by both rater groups. (30 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

TRANSMISSION ELECTRON MICROSCOPY OF AQUEOUS POLYMER GEL NETWORK MORPHOLOGY

Freeze-fracture TEM images of polymer network structure in aqueous hydroxypropyl guar (HPG) gels permit direct correlations between observed gel morphology and macroscopic chemical and mechanical properties. HPG in aqueous solution associates via hydrogen bonding, even without titanate crosslinker, to form an extended network, the structure of which depends on the electrolyte concentration. The titanate crosslinker acts only to weld together polymer molecules already associated by hydrogen bonding. Mechanical shear degrades the gel by breaking up the network inhomogeneously to form “fractured gel particles,” small domains of well-crosslinked gel separated by fluid domains.