This study examined the possibility that expectancy or anticipatory reactions influence the ability to read. The Event Related Potentials (ERPs) of 10 dyslexic Mexican male students (ages 11 to 13) and eight normal male students of the same age range were evaluated. ERPs were measured while the children read words, both in and out of context, that…

The purposes of this study were to provide information about how formal features of television are related to children's selective attention and to determine how selective attention is related, in turn, to comprehension of content. Formal features are defined as attributes of television productions that are relatively content-free and that result…

Research on three types of visual symbols is discussed in terms of the implications of the findings for instructional developers. The research in question focused on which of three symbol stimuli--concept-related graphic, arbitrary graphic, or verbal label--would most rapidly bring a psychomotor response under control and would maintain control…

This paper reports an attempt to research sensory overstimulation in a variety of children's television programs by rating the level of visual sensory stimulation, auditory sensory stimulation, verbal response patterns and nonverbal response patterns in 45 television programs designed for pre-school children. The Television Rating Inventory (TVRI)…

This study was designed to determine whether children 3, 4, and 5 years of age could demonstrate their metaphorical competence equally well in words and in pictures. Previous studies which have investigated young children's metaphorical ability have often encouraged young children to make judgments of similarity which rely almost exclusively on…

Results of a series of studies suggested that excessive early vocal stimulation may be detrimental to infants' cognitive processing, and that optimal development may be associated with a moderate amount of early stimulation. Study 1 involved 59 3-month-old infants and their mothers. Study 2 observed 23 mothers and infants seen 3 months after the…

Previous studies of the effect of age and modality on digit span task performance have yielded inconsistent results. To eliminate some of the methodological difficulties in prior research, 18 college students and 18 older adults were given the digit span task by means of three different modalities: (1) visual successive; (2) visual simultaneous;…

Three conjunctive concept-learning problems were presented to 70 educable mentally retarded (EMR) children (9 to 14 years old) and 76 controls (7 to 10 years old) to assess the effects of four verbalization conditions and the presence or absence of a memory aid on concept attainment. Verbalization conditions were the following. (1) no…

This paper reports three experiments concerning methodological issues in studies on incidental learning performance which use verbal and nonverbal procedures and which appear to be hampered by differences in stimulus materials, learning opportunities, and dependent measures. The first study, using 128 children from grades 3, 5, 7, and 9, attempted…

Investigates (in two phases) how coherence is cued between turns in conversations. Indicates that (1) turns were consistently paired well beyond chance, suggesting that explicit cues to connections between turns in conversations do exist; and (2) only lexical devices were found significantly more often in coherent than incoherent pairs. (NKA)

Based on psychological approaches that evoke mental representations through verbal and visual cues, this paper investigates the different kinds of mental representations projected by 8 to 11 year old children of identified arithmetical achievement when responding to verbal and visual stimuli associated with fractions. It examines how the visual…

Two studies were conducted to train students to use imagery in their learning and to investigate whether such training would transfer to solving visual puzzles and verbal problems. In the first study, with 78 graduate students, 29 experimental-group subjects were given a lecture and slide presentation designed to teach about imagery. Both the…

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the television production components and to suggest the research hypotheses and designs that will yield a more systematic exploration of the importance of the use of facial closeups in television interviews. The first part of the paper discusses three potential factors that may influence a viewer's judgment…

The usefulness of intact (topic outline format) and embedded (positioned within text) headings as processing aids to facilitate recall was examined, using a 2,500-word passage from introductory science textbooks. Prior studies were subject to criticisms which this study attempted to correct, specifically: (1) use of non-optimal dependent measures;…

The primary purpose for conducting the present experiment was to assess the effects of an associative-attribute--for example, stimulus meaningfulness (m) on the learning rates of different age group children. An attempt was also made to assess the effects of age and m on a measure of subjective organization. This research consisted of two studies:…