The purpose of the document is to assess facilitating and interfering effects of various strategies in samples of children from elementary and high school grade levels. Participating in the paired-associate study were 160 children, 40 each from first, third, sixth, and eleventh grades. Subjects were required to learn a 36-item aurally presented…

Second- and fourth-grade children learned two 25-item, paired-associate mixed lists under three experimental conditions: instructed imagery, imposed imagery, and control. Four specific transfer paradigms and a reference paradigm were represented in the lists. The specific transfer paradigms were constructed such that a first list stimulus term (a…

This study sought to determine whether an individual learns relatively better from pictures than from words and whether such information can be applied to the learning of prose materials. A paired-associate learning task consisting of both pictorial and verbal items from which different types of learners could be reliably identified was developed.…

Compared were performances of 39 educable mentally retarded (EMR) Ss, mean chronological age (CA) 11 1/2 years, mean mental age (MA) 7 3/4 years; 25 fifth graders matched on CA; and 27 second graders matched on MA to determine whether children of different ages and IQ spontaneously demonstrate learning strategies after repeated practice with…

The effects of three types of pretraining in the use of syntactical verbal mediators on subsequent paired-associate performance were investigated. Subjects were 40 Negro and 40 white first graders randomly assigned to one of four groups. Condition 1 consisted of pretraining in both "mediation" instruction (experimenter gave subjects a sentence…

The role of meaning in the learning of verbally presented paired associates (PAs) is described by means of an experiment with a replication. A printed PA list containing six different types of items was presented to Sixth Graders. Four of the item types consisted of sentence-embedded PAs on the study trials, followed by test trial cues varying in…

This experiment was conducted to examine word presentation routines to determine their effectiveness in spelling drills. The design included segmentation or focal unit (letter, chunk, whole word), audio (audio, no audio), and word type (List 1--pronounceable chunks, List 2--pronounced in running speech). Subjects were 48 students in Grades 3, 4,…

The effects of imagery on children's learning of verbal materials is reviewed. Paired associate learning is emphasized, with some discussion of recall, recognition, visual discrimination and prose learning. Visual versus verbal images, elaborated versus unelaborated stimuli, induced images, and physical manipulation of learning materials are…

Two experiments investigated the effects of pictures as first-sound or action mnemonics for learning letter-sound pairs by prereading kindergarten children. In both experiments, the mnemonics had a substantial effect during training, but this effect disappeared on a transfer test with the mnemonics removed. (Author/CP)

Shows that pretraining affects cue selection and produces integration of the stimulus without affecting paired associate learning. Suggests that these findings might help to improve selection strategies of younger children in paired associate learning. (RL)

Five experiments were conducted comparing performance on paired-associate lists of stimuli that rhymed with lists of stimuli that did not rhyme. Results are discussed in terms of the role of input position cues in aiding discrimination among items. (Editor/RK)

Discussed are innovative psychological assessment strategies intended to circumvent problems associated with traditional ability assessment of exceptional children. (Author/DB)

The present experiment was performed in order to investigate learning efficiency within four different ethnic groups: black, white, Chinese-American, and Spanish-American. In all groups, sampling was confined to children from low-socioeconomic-status communities. (Author)

Concludes that locus of choice is a powerful variable if properly manipulated, and that choosing only three responses in a 12-item list elevates performance to a level near that of a 12-item list in which all responses are chosen. (DS)

Part of a doctoral dissertation submitted at the University of Texas in Austin, Texas. (DS)