No abstract

Previous work has consistently found positive relationships between levels of sport team identification and social psychological well-being. According to the Team Identification-Social Psychological Health Model, these effects result from the increased social connections fans generate through their interest in the team. The current pair of investigations was designed to test the hypotheses that (1) team identification is positively related to social well-being and (2) team identification is positively related to social connections. In addition, the interrelationships among the variables were investigated (i.e., tests for mediation and moderation). In Study 1, a sample of 161 college students completed a questionnaire assessing demographics, identification with a local team, connections gained by following the team, and social well-being. Results indicated that, as expected, team identification was positively related to both well-being and social connections. Subsequent analyses failed to find evidence that social connections mediated or moderated the relationship between team identification and social psychological health. Study 2 (N ϭ 199 students from the same university as Study 1) replicated the results of the initial study using a more general measure of social connections (i.e., the Campus Connectedness Scale). Discussion includes the implications for the Team Identification-Social Psychological Health Model and the directionality between identification and social connections.

Attentional demands and recall for stories that differed in rated interest were examined. More interesting stories required fewer attentional resources for comprehension than did less interesting stories (Experiment 1). Overall recall did not differ across story interest, but story interest did interact with type of encoding in terms of recall levels (Experiment 2). Relational encoding improved recall for low-interest stories but not high-interest stories; the reverse pattern was obtained with a manipulation encouraging extensive processing of the individual propositions. We suggest that interesting stories free up resources for relatively optional organizational processing of the text elements, thereby rendering additional relational processing redundant (for recall). Less interesting stories require more resources to keep attention focused on encoding the individual propositions, thereby rendering additional propositionspecific processing redundant.

Erdelyi, Finks, and Feigin-Pfau (1989) present evidence that variations in recall criteria can affect the number of items correctly recalled. In this comment, we (a) describe some procedural differences between their work and the earlier experiments of Roediger and Payne (1985), (b) note that their large manipulations of recall criteria produced only small effects on the amount recalled, and (c) describe recent research complementing that of Erdelyi et al. We observe that variations in recall criteria have larger effects after a 1-week delay than on an immediate test.

We examine the possibility that the effects of illustrations on memory for text will vary as a function of the nature of the text (narrative versus expository) and as a function of the type of information depicted in the illustrations (details conveyed in a particular proposition versus information conveyed by the interrelationship of several propositions). In Experiment 1, 72 college subjects read either a fairy tale or an expository text accompanied by no pictures (control condition), by pictures illustrating details from the text, or by pictures illustrating relations among propositions in the text. Pictures effectively increased recall only when they depicted the type of information for which the text type presumably invited processing (i.e., details for the expository passage, relations for the fairy tale). In Experiment 2, 72 college subjects were instructed to attend to the type of information not normally encoded from each text type (relations for the expository passage, details for the fairy tale). With the addition of these special processing instructions, illustrations enhanced memory for not normally encoded information in the fairy tale; a tendency toward the same trend occurred in the expository passage. Recall of information for which the text type encouraged processing continued to be enhanced. The results of both experiments are consistent with the hypothesis that pictures primarily supplement the representation of information for which the text itself also invites processing.

No abstract

We examined the kinds of information in a prose passage that is better remembered when depictive illustrations are embedded in the passage than when the passage contains no illustrations. Experiment 1 showed that (1) pictures depicting details effectively increased recall of those details and (2) pictures depicting relationships effectively increased recall of that relational information (relative to a no-picture control condition). In Experiment 2, comprehension skill was found to modulate the general effects obtained in Experiment 1. Detail pictures enhanced the recall of targeted details for all skill levels. Relational pictures enhanced recall of pictured relational information for highly skilled and moderately skilled comprehenders, but not for less skilled comprehenders. Because there were no recall differences across the different skill levels in the nopicture control condition, it is suggested that pictures may serve to enable processing in which readers would not necessarily engage under ordinary circumstances. Pictures, however, did not appear to compensate for limitations reflected in lower scores on a standardized test of reading comprehension.

A framework is presented that helps explain and predict generation effects in free recall (for between-subjects manipulations of generating vs. reading). When the targets share common features and when that shared information is salient to subjects, subjects will exploit that information to help generate the target items. This produces more relational processing among the targets (relative to reading), enhancing free recall. Consistent with this idea, when shared information (among targets) was salient, generation effects in free recall were found under encoding conditions that can disrupt generation effects in cued recall (e.g., pairing targets with unrelated cues). Further, within the same list, generation effects emerged in free recall for targets that were processed after shared information became evident but not for targets processed prior to the availability of the shared information. In recognition, generation effects were found for targets regardless of when they were processed.