This article focuses on the early research domains investigated by Michael Pressley, along with the integrations and initiatives that were inspired by them. These research domains include verbal and imagery elaboration memory strategies, and developmental aspects of them; interrogative elaboration; pictorial strategies for language and literacy…

The role of motor activity in children's formation of dynamic mental imagery was investigated in two experiments using a paired-associate recognition task. From the recognition data, it was inferred that (2) the child's ability to form dynamic images relating two objects undergoes its most rapid development between the ages of five and eight; and…

Instructions were given to first and sixth graders to use an imagery-retrieval strategy in recalling 18 paired associates. (SS)

A paired-associate task was given to 119 middle-class fourth and fifth graders to investigate the nature and development of mediational strategies in children's learning. Imagery and sentence mediators which linked the stimuli and responses of pictorial paired associates were either provided by an experimenter or generated by the children. While…

Examines the relationship between sentence meaning and paired-associate recall. (AG)

Investigated whether there exists a stage of development at which "imagery-inducing motor activity" ceases to be facilitative relative to the effectiveness of alternative kinds of associative-learning strategies. (Author/SDH)

To test the comparative efficacy of a visual imagery associative learning strategy in younger and older children, second and sixth grade children were presented a list of paired associates (concrete nouns) either at a faster or slower rate, under either an instruction to generate an interactive image for the pairs or a no strategy, control…

Findings were that imagery instructions for picture pairs were generally more facilitative than imagery instructions for word pairs, with children at this age exhibiting little variability in their capacity to utilize a visual imagery strategy when pictures comprised the learning materials. (Authors)

The role of motor activity in children's formation of dynamic mental imagery was investigated in 2 experiments using a paired-associate recognition task. (Authors)

Imagery instructions facilitated the performance of sixth-, but not third-graders. (Authors)

Subjects at three age levels were administered picture pair or word pair discrimination lists. They pronounced or pointed as a method of choice, and they pronounced or pointed at the correct item (or remained silent) during rehearsal. The results indicated that with picture pairs, pronunciation facilitated learning as a method of choice and a type…

The major finding of the present experiment was that children as young a 7 or 8 (second graders) were able to employ an induced visual-imagery strategy to facilitate paired-associate learning. (Authors)

This summary of a program of research in children's learning describes the effects of pictures and visual imagery on children's cognitive performance. The role of individual differences is highlighted throughout the paper, as are variables which potentially limit the effects discussed. Some of the conclusions were that in a large number of…