To test differential incentive effects on immediate and delayed free recall and on recognition, fifth graders were presented word lists with items were associated with 10J or 1J rewards. Results were consistent with the Atkinson and Wickens model. Incentives are discussed in terms of mediated attention mechanisms. (GO)

Confirms the hypothesis that readers mediate the identification of unfamiliar words by comparing the unknown word to known words and parts. (RB)

Demonstrates that discrimination training with verbal materials (words and letters) is generally more helpful than training with non-verbal forms. (RB)

Spaced presentations of 12- and 15-word lists were better recalled when no task or an easy task intervened between presentations. Results indicate a lack of generality in Bjork and Allen's 1970 findings and a need for a two-factor theory of the spacing effect, and are evidence for a spacing effect. (CHK)

Evidence supports the hypothesis that visual word recognition may involve recoding into phonemic form. Less pronounceable nonsense words are recognized as nonsense faster than those more pronounceable. Differences in pronounceability may produce their effects during sequencing of neural instructions of each phoneme. (CHK)

Compared retention functions for children with those for young adults and elderly subjects in continuous recognition memory for words over retention intervals ranging from 2 minutes to 2 hours. (SDH)

A set of experiments are reported in which it was found that most subjects were better at identifying both meaning and wording changes in concrete sentences and subjects took significantly longer to encode and decode the abstract sentences. Implications of these findings are discussed. (Author/RM)

Listed for vocational training of mentally retarded secondary students are 250 words (such as photograph and salary) most frequently found on employment applications. (CL)

A reasonably accurate knowledge of the location of certain learning functions has been achieved through the steady accumulation of data concerning hemispheric specialization. One learning disabilities teacher (van den Honert, 1977) applied hemisphere specialization techniques to eliminate processing conflicts between the hemispheres by sending…

Four experiments investigated the phenomenon of letter migration, the tendency of readers to assign letters from one word to another appearing in close proximity. The experiments, which involved college undergraduate students, revealed several properties of letter migration, including the following: (1) migrations are more frequent when the words…

The prevailing assumption underlying practice in the classroom is that children acquire most of their new words from context during silent reading. The trouble with learning from silent reading is that many pupils do not read widely or quickly enough. Reading aloud to children will, however, allow them to participate in activity that they all can…

Three experiments investigated the processes by which 2-year-olds acquire the language to express category hierarchies. The first experiment studied how children use current linguistic knowledge to constrain the potential meanings of new words. This experiment compared interpretations of new words given to objects the children could already name…

Semantic priming is the process by which a subject performing a lexical decision task is prepared for a target word through the presentation of a semantically related word. Repetition of a given word at specific intervals is one form of priming that has been shown to reduce subject reaction time in word recognition tasks. A study was conducted to…

There are problems in interpreting the naming behavior of children. Children may misname a word because the word is absent from their vocabulary, because it is not yet firmly established, or because of a word retrieval or lexical assessing problem. Preliminary results are reported of an experimental technique designed to account for these…

The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of matching modality aptitudes to classroom-based reading instruction. (RB)