Memory for Expository Text: the effects of verbal and pictorial enhancements

Previous research has shown that pictures can be effective in enhancing text memory. For example, Waddill and McDaniel (1992) found that pictures depicting detail information in an expository text effectively enhanced recall of those details and pictures depicting relational information effectively enhanced recall of those relations. However, the research on picture enhancement effects raises the question of whether the mnemonic value of pictures is simply a by‐product of having drawn attention to parts of the text through selective repetition of text content. The present study addressed the question by comparing the relative effectiveness of pictures versus simple verbal captions in promoting text memory. The results replicated the Waddill and McDaniel (1992) pictorial enhancement effect. However, the results showed that repeating the targeted information in a verbal caption was as effective as providing a pictorial illustration, thus suggesting that repetition of text content rather than nonverbal pictorial illustrations produced the effect. The findings generalized across three texts that differed in the amount of spatial content they conveyed.     

有无文字匹配图片记忆效果的实验研究

以分层随机抽取的梅州市初中生50名、高中生60名和大学生50名为样本,采用有、无文字匹配图片为实验材料,通过实验探讨有、无文字匹配图片的记忆效果及其规律。结果表明：图片记忆效果与文字记忆效果一样,符合＂意义记忆效果优于机械记忆＂的记忆规律;图片记忆效果无性别差异;初中生的有意形象记忆已达到成人水平,即青少年的有意形象记忆已发展到了＂高峰＂。从初中到高中,无意义形象记忆水平在迅速发展,到了高中阶段,无意义形象记忆水平已发展到顶峰,以后再难有明显发展。     

The specific involvement of verbal and visuospatial working memory in hypermedia learning

Many models have hypothesized that multimedia comprehension requires the concurrent processing of verbal and visuospatial information by limited information processing systems. However, in spite of the emphasis devoted to the concurrent processing of verbal and visuospatial information, little research has so far investigated the specific role played by verbal and visuospatial abilities in multimedia comprehension. The present paper aims to study the specific involvement of verbal and visuospatial working memory in multimedia learning. Ninety‐two students (39 boys and 53 girls) from a middle school in a small city in the northeast of Italy, were asked to learn new information on the physical and social geography of Germany from a hypermedium. Participants were also required to perform a reading comprehension test, two short‐term memory tasks, and two working memory tasks, which assessed either verbal or visuospatial memory. The results support the hypothesis that both verbal and visuospatial working memory sub‐components play a role in hypermedium processing, but with specific and distinct functions: the performance in the verbal working memory task was able to predict the semantic knowledge children can derive from hypermedia learning. In contrast, visuospatial working memory seemed to have lower connections to the semantic knowledge children derived from a hypermedia document, whereas its role emerged in the ability to construct a representation of the document structure.     

Object location memory: A direct test of the verbal memory hypothesis

Although the male advantage in traditional spatial abilities is well established, the female advantage in object location memory remains tentative. Object location memory is the only spatial ability that yields a female advantage, leading some to speculate that other factors, such as verbal memory, may solely account for the sex difference. The present experiment directly addressed the role of verbal memory using a novel object location memory task. Results suggest that the direction of the sex difference is context-specific, depending on the nature of the stimuli, and that verbal memory may account for the female bias in object location memory.     

言语工作记忆在双语加工中的作用

本文探讨了言语工作记忆在双语者第一语言和第二语言学习中发挥的不同作用,尤其在两种语言的阅读理解、语法理解、口语水平、词汇密度和语言成绩等方面,并推论它在形式不同的语言加工中具有特殊性和普适性。     

Co-development among reading,math, science,and verbal working memory in the elementary stage

With a focus on within-person effects, this study investigated mutualism among academic skills (reading, math, science) and between those skills and verbal working memory in a general population sample and groups with high or low skills from Grades 2 to 5 (2010–2016, N = 859–9040, age 6.27–13.13 years, 49% female, ethnically diverse). Mutualism was found between reading and science in all high-ability groups, and between reading/math and verbal working memory only in high-math students. These results remained the same when controlled for socioeconomic status and gender, and with sensitivity analyses. High-skill students (especially high-math students) may improve academic performance through accumulation of academic knowledge and mutualism between academic and cognition. Such mutualism may be driven by high-quality, intensive academic practice.     

What you see is what you remember? Depictions of historical figures influence memory for historical facts

We investigated whether the characteristics of pictures affect memory for verbal learning materials. In the learning phase, participants watched a slideshow about historical figures that were depicted as more or as less powerful. The slideshow included spoken information that was more prototypical for either powerful or powerless people and thus semantically congruent (e.g., depiction and verbal information rated as powerful) or incongruent with the pictures. Congruency resulted in more errors when participants had to reject incorrect items in a memory test. There was no effect of congruency on verifying correct items. This pattern was observed for a slideshow that included one picture for each historical figure (Experiment 1) and for a slideshow including additional pictures (Experiment 2). Hence, both experiments provide corroborating evidence that pictures affect learners’ memory for verbal learning materials. These findings are relevant for instructional practice with regard to the design of learning materials and test items.     

The development of recognition memory for the left-right orientation of pictures

3 studies examined the development of recognition memory for the left-right orientation of pictures of common objects. In study 1, 5-year-olds, 9-year-olds, and college students were shown 20 pictures of objects. Subsequently, they were tested on their ability to discriminate between 10 of these pictures and their left-right mirror images and between the other 10 pictures and completely new ones. There were large developmental differences in memory for orientation, although all age groups could discriminate accurately between familiar pictures and completely new ones. In studies 2a and 2b, training concerning the relevance of orientation improved second and fourth graders' long-term memory for this characteristic, but training effects were minimal for kindergartners. However, even kindergarten children showed accurate short-term memory for orientation on the task used for training. In contrast to study 2, study 3 produced accurate long-term memory for orientation in kindergarten children by using a verbal training procedure. Results are discussed in terms of the range of memory factors involved in children's mirror-image confusions and in terms of general implications for the development of recognition memory.     

Phonological awareness,verbal working memory and the acquisition of literacy

This paper describes a 2-year longitudinal study of 76 initially prereading children. The study examined the relationships between phonological awareness (measured by tests of onset and rime, phonemic segmentation and phoneme deletion), verbal working memory and the development of reading and spelling. Factor analyses showed that the verbal working memory tests which were administered loaded on two distinct but highly related factors, the first of which,simple repetition, involved the repetition of verbal items exactly as spoken by the experimenter, whereas the second,backwards repetition, involved repetition of items in reverse order. Factor analyses also showed that, whist the phonological awareness variables consistently loaded on the backwards repetition factor at the beginning and end of Grade 1, by Grade 2 the phonological awareness variables loaded on a separate factor which also included sentence repetition. Results of multiple regression analyses, with reading and spelling as a compound criterion variable, indicated that phonological awareness consistently predicted later reading and spelling even when both simple and backwards repetition were controlled. In contrast, verbal working memory did not consistently predict reading and spelling across testing times. Whilst there was some indication that verbal working memory, especially backwards repetition, measured during Grade 1 did predict reading and spelling in Grade 2, these effects were no longer evident when all three phonological variables were controlled. Nevertheless, with 4 individual reading and 2 individual spelling measures as the criterion variables, it was shown that phonological awareness was not quite such a consistent predictor of reading and spelling: it was most highly related to reading pseudowords and spelling real words; but it was not so highly related to spelling pseudowords, apparently because the processing demands of the task for the young children in the study were extremely high. Given the importance of verbal working memory for the completion of phonological awareness, reading and spelling tasks, in particular for spelling pseudowords, the findings are interpreted as providing some support for a theoretical position which posits that both phonological awareness and verbal working memory contribute to the early stages of literacy acquisition. Whilst the findings suggest some support for a general underlying phonological ability, there is also evidence that, as children learn to read and write, verbal working memory and phonological awareness become more differentiated.     

Impact of feedback request forms and verbal feedback on higher education students’ feedback perception,self-efficacy,and motivation

ABSTRACT

In higher education, students often misunderstand teachers’ written feedback. This is worrisome, since written feedback is the main form of feedback in higher education. Organising feedback conversations, in which feedback request forms and verbal feedback are used, is a promising intervention to prevent misunderstanding of written feedback. In this study a 2 × 2 factorial experiment (N = 128) was conducted to examine the effects of a feedback request form (with vs. without) and feedback mode (written vs. verbal feedback). Results showed that verbal feedback had a significantly higher impact on students’ feedback perception than written feedback; it did not improve students’ self-efficacy, or motivation. Feedback request forms did not improve students’ perceptions, self-efficacy, or motivation. Based on these results, we can conclude that students have positive feedback perceptions when teachers communicate their feedback verbally and more research is needed to investigate the use of feedback request forms.     

高、低考试焦虑者的工作记忆刷新功能:任务负荷与刺激材料的影响

以考试相关和中性图片为刺激材料,采用n-back实验范式,考察高、低任务负荷条件下,高、低考试焦虑者的工作记忆刷新表现。结果表明:高、低负荷任务中,高考试焦虑者对考试相关图片的反应时都显著长于低焦虑者;高负荷任务中,高考试焦虑者对考试相关图片的反应正确率显著低于低考试焦虑者,而在低负荷任务中无差异。对中性图片的反应时及正确率两组均无差异。研究认为,高负荷条件下,高考试焦虑者对考试相关图片的工作记忆刷新功能较低考试焦虑者有显著缺陷。     

Longitudinal effects of verbal ability,memory capacity,and phonological awareness on reading performance

This study addresses the longitudinal relationship among verbal ability, memory capacity, phonological awareness, and reading performance. Data from 92 German children were used to explore the exact relation among these variables. Indicators of verbal ability, memory capacity, and phonological awareness were assessed in kindergarten and again after the first grade. The interrelationships among these factors, and the subsequent influence they have on decoding speed and reading comprehension during the second grade were examined via structural equation modeling procedures. Overall, the results of the longitudinal analyses show that the relationship of memory capacity and phonological awareness remains stable over time, and that memory capacity predicts performance on phonological awareness tasks in both kindergarten and second grade. Phonological awareness proved to be a significant predictor of decoding speed, which in turn considerably influenced reading comprehension.     

Genetic aspects of verbal mediation in memory.

When do children begin to store visually presented information using a speech code? Conrad has shown that at age 6, but not before, children have more difficulty in recalling items whose names rhyme than items whose names do not and concluded that at 6 years of age children begin to store information in memory using verbal labels. Experiment 1, using a technique similar to the one introduced by Conrad, showed that 4-year-old children memorized nonrhyming items better than rhyming ones. Experiment 2 used a different technique. Instead of comparing the performance obtained with 2 series of different items, one with rhyming and the other with nonrhyming names, we have, by using bilingual children, made comparisons within the same series of items. In one language the items had rhyming names and in the other, nonrhyming names. This technique controlled for the intrinsic difficulty of the items. The results of experiment 2 confirmed those obtained in experiment 1. Our conclusion is that 4-year-old children already use a speech code in order to store and organize information in memory.     

Another look at the STM capacity of prelingually deafened individuals and its relation to reading comprehension

The study investigated the short-term recall of serially presented verbal(izable) information by prelingually deafened individuals and hearing individuals, and reconsidered how short-term memory (STM) is linked with their reading skills and their memory coding strategies. A computer-controlled paradigm calling for written ordered recall of 12 lists of 8 consecutively displayed Hebrew nouns was used to assess STM capacity. Forty-nine students with prelingual deafness (mean grade 6.9) and 39 hearing students (mean grade 6.5) participated in the experiment. Twenty-seven of the participants with deafness were raised according to an oral philosophy. The remaining 22 participants from the deaf group used sign language as their preferred communication code. In general, the findings suggest that neither discrepancy in the ordered short-term recall of verbal materials nor discrepancies in reading comprehension are directly assignable to differences in the memory coding strategies of prelingually deafened and hearing individuals. If such functional discrepancies develop, they reflect absent or insufficiently internalized knowledge.     

The effect of poverty on the verbal scores of gifted students

A nonexperimental design was used to determine whether the verbal scores of low-income gifted fifth graders (n = 38) differed from those of their higher income peers (n = 83). The Otis–Lennon School Ability Test, Eighth Edition and the Stanford Achievement Test-Tenth Edition were used to collect student data. Results of a MANOVA showed a statistically significant difference between the verbal scores of the two groups, with low-income students scoring significantly lower. A large effect size for the multivariate main effect of income level on verbal intelligence and verbal achievement scores was found (η² = .19). The existence of verbal–nonverbal score discrepancy in low-income students questions the practice of using only nonverbal or nonverbal parts of an IQ test to identify and place students in gifted programmes. These results also underscore the need to nurture underdeveloped verbal abilities when they occur in low-income students.     

Temporal resolution of auditory perception and verbal working memory in 15 children with language impairment

We investigated temporal resolution of auditory perception (TRAP), verbal working memory, and speech perception in 15 children with language impairment (LI) in comparison with a control group of 99 typical children. A computerized two-choice test was used to assess these three abilities. No deficits in TRAP were found in the LI group, and the thresholds were similar for both study groups. It was interesting that the variability was high for both groups and that the control group's performance was poorer than reported in some previously published studies. There were significant differences in the two groups' performance on speech perception and verbal working memory. Working memory was the most sensitive of these two measures.     

Effects of Visual and Phonological Distinctness on Visual–verbal Paired Associate Learning in Dutch Dyslexic and Normal Readers

In three studies, the effects of visual and phonological distinctness on the visual–verbal paired associate learning of dyslexic and normal readers at the age of 10–12 were examined. We hypothesized that both groups would be equally affected by the visual distinctness of the pictures, whereas the learning performance of the dyslexic children would be more susceptible to the phonological distinctness of the verbal stimuli (words). As expected, in Study 1 we found that the visual distinctness of pictures had a similar effect on both groups. However, the results of Studies 2 and 3 on the effect of phonological distinctness did not support the hypothesis. Both reader groups were equally affected by the phonological distinctness of the words. In addition, we found that, although not consistently, dyslexic children tended to be worse in verbal learning, which could to a large extent be explained by their problems with phonological processing.     

An investigation of sex differences on incidental memory for verbal and pictorial material

Previous research has sometimes claimed a female advantage on tasks of incidental memory. However, it is uncertain whether the sex difference was due to the incidental, or to the heavily verbal, nature of the tasks used, since women are known to have better verbal memory than men. The current study asked whether a female superiority would be found under less verbally-loaded conditions. No sex difference was found on two different pictorial tasks, both of which measured incidental memory for the content of complex scenes. In contrast, a female advantage was observed across both incidental and intentional conditions when easily labeled stimuli were used. This advantage was eliminated on the incidental condition when the effects of intentional verbal memory were controlled for. These findings strongly suggest that previous reports of a female advantage on incidental memory may have been due to the choice of verbalizable stimuli.