Reports that second-grade students in reading groups that used materials without pictures had faster mean reading times than students who read the same materials with pictures, but did not differ from them in comprehension or achievement. (FL)

Reports on a study in which ninth-grade students of differing reading ability were asked to paraphrase a section of text. Indicates that a major difference among reader ability groups was in the number of inferences they made in the paraphrasing task. (HTH)

Examines the relative effectiveness of organizational strategy use at study versus test in a single-trial, free-recall learning task among 90 subjects drawn from second grade, sixth grade, and college levels. Developmental increases in performance were observed for the dependent measures of correct recall, study-trial organization, test-trial…

The proposition was investigated that concept learning is a twofold process: acquisition of a prototype and development of generalization and discrimination skills. The assumption that formative evaluation procedures are necessary when attempting to prepare better instructional treatments for improved student performance was tested. (Author/GK)

Describes a conceptual schema based on four basic requirements of the learner--stimulation, order, strategy, and meaning. These basic learner requirements are subdivided to describe the instructional environment necessary to provide an optimum fit between the learner and the environment. Fourteen references are cited. (Author/CHC)

Human performance on verbal and spatial matching tasks was assessed every 15 minutes for eight hours. Significant 90- to 100-minute oscillations were observed for each task. It was also found that increases in performance on one task are accompanied by decreases on the other. (HM)

The phenomenon of cognitive dissonance was examined in relation to consumer habits. (MM)

The author presents a portrait of one gifted child, six-year-old Michael, and discusses procedures and tests for identifying pupils for an academically gifted program. (SJL)

Letter encoding is typically viewed as an automatic process that is both obligatory and interference free. In these experiments, either familiar or non-familiar primes produced significant amounts of interference even when subjects were trying to ignore the visual input. Early perceptual components of encoding are both obligatory and resource…

Shows how cognitive psychology can provide guidelines to design computer systems that are easy to use, based on the assumption that prior knowledge of the real world and natural language affect users' attitudes toward the computer. Concludes that human-computer communication is facilitated when the system is consistent with this knowledge.…

Details the effect of an instructional package of 10 lessons to teach adolescents five decision-making skills. Instances of adolescent behavior are described using the problem of cigarette smoking. The program was assessed in three studies. (Author/MLF)

Suggests that oral and silent sentence reading represent a similar cognitive process. Reports that poor readers, in particular, decrease processing time on difficult words in silent as compared to oral reading. (AEA)

Socially disadvantaged children who were tutored on a one-to-one basis twice a week did not show any significant achievement gain over nontutored children, although data from tutors, parents, children, and teachers indicate that the tutoring should have had an impact. (CJ)

Differences between learning disabled and nonlearning disabled children's paired-associate learning can be eliminated by using instructional modifications. Procedures that reduce the "overloading" of the learning disabled students' cognitive processes have positive effects on associative learning. (CJ)

Describes a procedure for assessing a beginning reader's knowledge of the spoken word/written word match in reading. (FL)