Participants took part in a two-stage investigation examining the changes in memory for conversation over time. The impact of memory expectancy and mode of recall were also examined. Participants could recall only about 10% of their conversations immediately after the conversations. One month later this fipre had dropped to 4%. Examination of recall protocols revealed that after a one month delay, participants recalledless content and reported more descriptive statements, made more inferences, and were less accurate than when they had recalled immediately. In addition, expectancies about memory and mode used to report recollections affected the amount and type of information reported. Finally, participants recalled more of their partner's contributions to the conversations than their own contributions. M EMORY is an integral component of communicative ability. To converse appropriately people must minimally rely on their memory for linguistic rules and grammars as well as topical information. Moreover, competent communicators must retrieve memories about specific events that occurred with particular others in order to devise trajectories for the likely directions that their conversations may take (Stafford & Daly, 1984).

Conversational themes can be viewed as a form of metacommunication about relationships. We suggest that the prominent themes in the conversations of spouses identify factors assumed to h a w an important effect on the relationship. Further, different ways of looking a t marriage are reflected in the use ofparticular content themes. A typology of content themes was deriwd from transcripts of conversations and the typology was used to code the discussions of married couples. The content themes of different marital types (i.e., traditional, separate, and independent) and more and less satisfied spouses were compared. As expected, traditional couples emphasized communal themes, such as togetherness, and separate couples emphasized individualistic themes, such as personality and separateness. Although the effects of marital satisfaction were not consistent, satisfaction tended to be positively associated with communal and impersonal themes and negatively associated with indiuidual themes. Generally, the results confirmed predicted relationships between content themes and selfreports about the marriage. casual look at the research on interpersonal communication would reveal that this literature has been more concerned A with how people communicate than with what they say. The emphasis of stylistic and structural aspects of conversation over message content reflects a widely held theoretical belief that pragmatic Alan L. Sillars (Ph.D., University of Wisconsin, 1980) is assistant professor of interpersonal communication at the University of Montana, Missoula. Judith Weisberg (M.A., Bradley University, 1%7), Cynthia S. BurWaf (M.A., Ohio State University, 1985) and Elizabeth A. Wilson (M.A., Colorado State University, 1972) are doctoral

Despite the persistence of sex-typed images of the expressivity of wife and husband, past observational studies have given little indication of sex-linked differences in marital communication. Thus, we proposed that inter personally negotiated role expectations would be a better predictor of communication about marital conflict than sex. However, we also proposed that there might be sex differences within particular clusters of couples who endorse sex-differentiated role expectations. Couples were classified into groups using Fitzpatrick's (1983) typology. The results of two studies indicated that couple type was significantly related to communication about marital conflict; however, there were neither any clear overall sex differences in communication nor sex differences within couple types. Rather, the results indicated that conflict styles are so strongly reciprocal that mutual influence within conversations tends to remove individual speaker differences. The research suggests that mutual influence processes and mutually established beliefs and expectations account for conflict styles more adequately than biological sex.

This study integrated social-cognitive and interpersonal frameworks in the mass communication setting. Although television presents afairly consistent view of marriage as corrventionaland happy, we proposed that collegestudents'maritalschemata, or implicit theories about niarriage, would influence their evaluations of television couples'marital satisfaction. Collegestudents (N = 358) completed two waues ofquestionnaires that used Fitzputrick's (1988) Relational Dimensions Instrument to assess marital schemata and perceptions of married couples on television. Partial correlations revealed that greater similarity between marital schemata and ratings of television couples'marriage type was associated with higher ratings of perceizled television marital satisfaction. Analysis of covariance indicated that this eflect held only for the Traditional schema type. The discussion focuses on the implications of the findings for media effects and marital comm un ica tion research.

This article examines relationship themes in the conversations of 52 married couples and suggests that implicit aspects of relationship definition are reflected,first, in the content of discussion themes and, second, in the way that different themes are integrated. A s expected, "communal" themes (concerning togetherness, cooperation, and communication) wereexpressed morefrequently and individual themes (concerning personality and individual differences) were expressed less frequently by couples who were more psychologically interdependent, more conventional, less assertive, more satisfid, and older. A qualitative analysis of transcripts considered how relationship themes were integrated, based on the chaining out of thenzes by successive speakers (i.e., "continuity") and expression of shared superordinate themes (i.e., "hierarrhy"). Three forms of interaction ("blending," "dtferentiating," and "balancing") were identified that reflect different levels ofintegration. Relationship characteristics, such as marital ideology and satisfaction, were consistent with the degree of interdependence/autonomy suggested by each f i r m of interaction. he idea that communication defines (and is defined by) interpersonal relationships is the centerpiece of relationalT perspectives on interpersonal communication. Mostly, this Alan L. Sillars is Associate Professor of Communication Studies at the University of Montana. Cynthia S. Burggrafis Associate Professor of Communication at the University of Delaware. Susan Yost is a doctoral candidate in communication at Ohio State University. Paul H.