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In 2 experiments, 72 university students read 10 essays that were written in either good or bad rhetorical form. In their good form, the essays closely followed familiar rhetorical schemata (such as definition and procedural description) with explicit cues to alert readers to their structure. In the bad form, these cues were deleted, and the actual order of paragraphs deviated from the ideal rhetorical form. The content, however, remained the same for both forms of a text. Performance differed, depending on whether tests were used that evaluated macro- or microprocesses (global or local comprehension). Ss were much better able to ...

The accessibility of written information becomes an increasingly relevant issue in today's information-dense society. Although headings are generally known to signal textual content and thus aid access, it remains unclear how frequently headings should be used for optimal document use. Information Mapping is a text writing method that systematically splits up text in chunks accompanied by headings. The present paper presents a study in which a print health education document was varied systematically in accordance with the Information Mapping method, to examine the effects of heading frequency and information order on participants' search speed and their evaluation of the text ...

178 undergraduates participated in a study designed to examine the differential effect of form and content schema on reading comprehension. Results of Exp 1 with artificial text and Exp 2 with an actual textbook chapter indicate that outlines and headings each had a facilitative effect on Ss' recall. Further, a combined condition in which both headings and outlines accompanied text resulted in the greatest overall levels of recall. Results of Exp 3 indicate that outlines provided Ss with knowledge of text organization, while headings did not. Overall results suggest that the effect of form and content schemata may be independent ...

178 undergraduates participated in a study designed to examine the differential effect of form and content schema on reading comprehension. Results of Exp 1 with artificial text and Exp 2 with an actual textbook chapter indicate that outlines and headings each had a facilitative effect on Ss' recall. Further, a combined condition in which both headings and outlines accompanied text resulted in the greatest overall levels of recall. Results of Exp 3 indicate that outlines provided Ss with knowledge of text organization, while headings did not. Overall results suggest that the effect of form and content schemata may be independent ...

178 undergraduates participated in a study designed to examine the differential effect of form and content schema on reading comprehension. Results of Exp 1 with artificial text and Exp 2 with an actual textbook chapter indicate that outlines and headings each had a facilitative effect on Ss' recall. Further, a combined condition in which both headings and outlines accompanied text resulted in the greatest overall levels of recall. Results of Exp 3 indicate that outlines provided Ss with knowledge of text organization, while headings did not. Overall results suggest that the effect of form and content schemata may be independent ...

Presents results which show that education level and warning vocabulary affect consumer reactions to warnings. 44 adult consumers who did not complete high school were not able to comprehend warnings that contained difficult vocabulary as well as warnings with simple words. They perceived products that carry warnings with simple words as safer than products labeled with warnings containing difficult words. However, 61 consumers with more education (Ss completed at least a bachelor's degree) were found to have more negative attitudes toward warnings with difficult words than warnings with simple words despite understanding the warnings equally well. ...

Three experiments were carried out to elucidate the origins of the concreteness (C) effect in a lexical decision task. The first experiment was a replication of the work of Schwanenflugel et al. (1988) and Van Hell and De Groot (1998), who presented the context availability (CA) hypothesis. In this experiment CA seemed to be a dominant factor. Familiarity (FAM) was not incorporated in the ANOVA, but a regression analysis and negative correlation between C and FAM in the groups matched on CA showed that FAM could explain the disappearance of the C effect. Experiment 2 controlled FAM and revealed a ...

Three experiments were carried out to elucidate the origins of the concreteness (C) effect in a lexical decision task. The first experiment was a replication of the work of Schwanenflugel et al. (1988) and Van Hell and De Groot (1998), who presented the context availability (CA) hypothesis. In this experiment CA seemed to be a dominant factor. Familiarity (FAM) was not incorporated in the ANOVA, but a regression analysis and negative correlation between C and FAM in the groups matched on CA showed that FAM could explain the disappearance of the C effect. Experiment 2 controlled FAM and revealed a ...

Three experiments were carried out to elucidate the origins of the concreteness (C) effect in a lexical decision task. The first experiment was a replication of the work of Schwanenflugel et al. (1988) and Van Hell and De Groot (1998), who presented the context availability (CA) hypothesis. In this experiment CA seemed to be a dominant factor. Familiarity (FAM) was not incorporated in the ANOVA, but a regression analysis and negative correlation between C and FAM in the groups matched on CA showed that FAM could explain the disappearance of the C effect. Experiment 2 controlled FAM and revealed a ...

A summarization task was used to study whether headings influence readers' representations of the topic structure of a text. College students (Experiments 1-3) and sixth- and eighth-graders (Experiment 3) summarized a multiple topic text that (a) included headings introducing every new subtopic, (b) included headings introducing half of the new subtopics, or (c) included no headings. In all experiments, topics were more likely to be included in a summary if they were signaled than if they were not signaled. This effect was magnified when the text was only half signaled: Signaled topics were more likely to appear in a summary ...