"This concluding article provides the first published account of a series of psychological experiments which are presently being undertaken by the Schools Television Research Project, examining presentation factors in instructional television. (Editor)

The phenomenon of more interference with reading than with listening was replicated using speech-related and nonspeech-related distractor tasks. It is argued that the selective interference effect is due to the relative difficulty of reading over listening rather than to the importance of speech recoding in reading. (Author/RD)

Results of perceptual tests administered to 50 retarded readers and 50 average readers in third grade indicated a significant difference between the two groups on visual sequential memory for letters. (CL)

This study sought to develop the picture-interpretation strategies of fourth-grade children by providing training in the use of such verbal guidelines as "Help yourself to all the given information." The program apparently helped the children produce more inferences, but did not enhance their skills in evaluating inferences. (Author/JEG)

Separate experiments focusing on attention to multiple stimuli, psychological refractory period, and motor coordination demonstrated that emergent aspects of the whole situation must also be considered. Performance under divided attention reflected an interaction between resource limitation, single task processes, and emergent aspects of the whole…

A 14-year-old student with moderate retardation rode a stationary bicycle, while rotation of the bicycle wheel operated one of three consequence conditions (television, flashing lights, or vibrator sound). Vibrator sound was the most potent reinforcing consequence. The activity led to the development of exercise behavior with a minimum amount of…

Thirty young and 10 elderly adults were assessed on orienting auditory attention, in a mixed-modal condition in which stimuli were either auditory or visual. Findings suggest that the mechanisms involved in orienting attention operate in audition and that individuals may allocate their processing resources among multiple sensory pools. (Author/JDD)

Multimedia learners (n=146 college students) were able to integrate words and computer-presented pictures more easily when the words were presented aurally rather than visually. This split-attention effect is consistent with a dual-processing model of working memory. (SLD)

Supports a differential development model of reading disability that argues deficits in rapid auditory ability in children are primarily associated with problems in phonological processing, whereas deficits in rapid visual ability in children are primarily associated with problems in orthographic processing; and, for adults, continued deficits in…

Two studies investigated whether young children acquiring verbs at an exceptional rate can use the syntactic structure of familiar and unfamiliar verbs to make conjectures about some aspect of the meanings of those verbs. The preferential looking paradigm (Golinkoff and Hirsh-Pasek, 1981) was used to set up a naturalistic pairing of scene and…

Three experiments test the relationship between implicit speech and comprehension processes for meaningful material. (Author/AM)

THREE STUDIES INVESTIGATE AUDITORY AND VISUAL MEMORY ABILITIES AND THEIR POTENTIAL ROLES AS INSTRUCTIONAL AND PERSONNEL PREDICTORS. STUDY I PRESENTS TO 185 COLLEGE FRESHMEN 42 ABILITY TESTS FROM WHICH SEVEN MAJOR ROTATED FACTORS EMERGE--SERIAL MEMORY SPAN, SERIAL INTEGRATION, ASSOCIATIVE MEMORY, ABSTRACTS FROM SOCIAL INTERACTION SITUATIONS, VERBAL…

This pilot study investigated (1) the extent scanning speed can be improved through practice, (2) the learning strategies students use in attempting to improve their scanning, and (3) differences between scanning rate for stimuli presented orally and visually. Subjects were advanced college students with average reading skills. Each subject was…

Visual fixation on one of two blank targets was reinforced with either visual or auditory stimuli in one of 3 intensity sequences: (1) low, medium, high; (2) medium, high, low; and (3) high, low, medium. An analysis of variance of learning scores for the 48 14-week-old infants resulted in a significant interaction of intensity and order and in a…