Search results

Examined recall and retrieval from familiar and unfamiliar text in relation to the position of headings (marginal vs text embedded) and the kinds of headings used (questions vs statements) in 17 experiments. Results from the 1st 9 experiments show that the position of the headings had no effect, but headings in either form aided recall and search and retrieval of information from the text in 14-25 yr old Ss. Four experiments with 11-12 yr olds showed that headings aided Ss' search and retrieval but not their recall from a 2nd text. However, an additional study with 14-25 yr olds and ...

Examined recall and retrieval from familiar and unfamiliar text in relation to the position of headings (marginal vs text embedded) and the kinds of headings used (questions vs statements) in 17 experiments. Results from the 1st 9 experiments show that the position of the headings had no effect, but headings in either form aided recall and search and retrieval of information from the text in 14-25 yr old Ss. Four experiments with 11-12 yr olds showed that headings aided Ss' search and retrieval but not their recall from a 2nd text. However, an additional study with 14-25 yr olds and ...

Examined recall and retrieval from familiar and unfamiliar text in relation to the position of headings (marginal vs text embedded) and the kinds of headings used (questions vs statements) in 17 experiments. Results from the 1st 9 experiments show that the position of the headings had no effect, but headings in either form aided recall and search and retrieval of information from the text in 14-25 yr old Ss. Four experiments with 11-12 yr olds showed that headings aided Ss' search and retrieval but not their recall from a 2nd text. However, an additional study with 14-25 yr olds and ...

Examined the utility of intact (i.e., topic outline format) and embedded (i.e., appropriately positioned within the text) headings as processing aids with nonnarrative text. It is argued that headings potentially provide useful cues for both input and output processing but that little empirical evidence exists to either support or refute this proposition. It is further argued that each of the prior studies reviewed was subject to one or more methodological criticisms that may attenuate the generality of the findings. Results of the present study with a total of 95 college students indicated that no advantage accrued to Ss on the ...

Conducted 2 experiments with 100 undergraduates to test the hypothesis that abstract sentences become as easy to understand as concrete sentences when given appropriate prior context. Both experiments used a similar procedure to compare the comprehension of abstract and concrete sentences in isolation and in context except that in Exp II, the contexts were modified to make abstract and concrete contexts more comparable. Paragraph contexts and sentences followed by a comprehension question were presented in a speeded reading task. Results show that the abstract sentences remained significantly more difficult to process than the concrete sentences in both experiments, thus refuting ...

Effects of topic headings on the processing of multiple-topic expository texts were examined with the help of readers' eye fixation patterns. Adult participants read two texts, one in which topic shifts were signaled by topic headings and one in which topic headings were excluded. The presence of topic headings facilitated the processing of topic sentences and increased the number of topics mentioned in the text summaries written after reading the texts. The facilitatory effect of headings was reflected both in the fixations made during the first-pass reading as well as in the later look-backs directed to the topic sentences. A ...

This study replicated previous reading time studies that have observed increased reading times for sentences introducing a new subtopic in a text, compared with sentences that are continuations of a subtopic. This topic-shift effect was obtained for the initial reading but not when the same text was reread. The absence of topic-shift effect was taken to suggest that readers construct a mental representation of the text's topic structure during the initial reading. The topic-shift effect was primarily due to regressive fixations, which tended to land in the first half of sentences. Regressions were typically launched at the end of sentences, ...

This study examined the relationship between the number of cohesive ties in a passage, as defined by Halliday and Hasan (1976), and free and prompted recall scores. Two versions of a passage on gibbons were developed, with one version containing about twice as many ties as the other. Sixty college studets participated: each read one of the passage-versions and then, either immediately or after 20 minutes, recorded his/her free recall and answered the prompted-recall questions. Though there were no differences between the treatment groups in terms of the number of micro-level propositions recalled, there were significant differences between these groups ...

Two 1,000-word science passages were rewritten to create 7 stylistically "simpler" versions. 336 12th graders read the passages, and their responses to the text were assessed by 5 measures of text difficulty. Readability was unaffected by the alterations. Consideration of patterns of scores suggests that readability may be changed only when significant sources of difficulty, such as concept familiarity, are addressed. Because the essential content was unchanged in the present adaptations, the readability was unaffected. ...

Elderly adults in their 70s and 80s and middle-aged adults in their 40s and 50s recalled a series of paragraphs made up of single-clause sentences and sentences with right-branching or left-branching embedded or subordinate clauses. Overall, the middle-aged adults recalled 65% of the propositions regardless of syntactic form. While the elderly adults recalled 43% of the propositions from the single-clause sentences, they recalled 60% of the propositions from the right-branching clauses but only 22% of the propositions from the left-branching clauses. These results, in conjunction with prior research on elderly adults' production and imitation of complex syntactic constructions, demonstrate age-related ...