Compared 2 types of elaboration training (imagery and sentence elaboration) over 2 levels of verbalization (none and overt). 32 elementary, educable mentally retarded children were randomly assigned to 1 of the 4 elaboration treatment conditions of the resulting 2 * 2 factorial design. Results indicate that verbalization greatly influenced the degree of effectiveness of elaboration training. However, no support was found for the secondary hypothesis that overt verbalization would result in relatively greater facilitation with one type of elaboration (imagery) than with the other type (sentence elaboration). 2 sets of explanations are examined. In addition, educational applications of elaboration are discussed, with special attention given to the implications of the verbalization findings. (25 ref.)
From current theory on the differential effectiveness of imagery over verbal elaboration one would expect imagery to be especially effective when the task requires recall of more information for each associative unit. A modified paired-associate task, requiring recall of three responses for each stimulus, was administered to college students under both imagery and verbal mediation instructions. Contrary to expectation, no significant differences were obtained between mediation instructions. The results were interpreted with respect to the nature of instructions and the structural features of the task.
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