Semantic Integration and the Development of Memory for Logical Inferences

Small, Melinda Y.; Butterworth, John

doi:10.1111/j.1467-8624.1981.tb03107.x

Cited by 6 publications

(6 citation statements)

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“…This effect was not seen in the 4-yearolds, who were able to discriminate between prototype and new items (recall that neither new nor prototype items were in the Acquisition phase). This effect persists when overall frequency (Table 2) and possible lexical memory effects are accounted for (Tables 1 and 3), thus controlling for the familiarity confound that has been a feature of other studies (for criticisms of this, see Liben & Posnansky, 1977;Paris & Mahoney, 1974;Small & Butterworth, 1981).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…Several investigators (Liben & Posnansky, 1977;Paris & Mahoney, 1974;Small & Butterworth, 1981) have pointed out that in most studies using verbal materials in the prototype-plus-distortion methodology, simple familiarity with the test sentences from previous presentations, rather than consistency with meaning or inference, is sufficient to account for false recognition of true sentences. To control for this methodological confound, it was important that the degree of lexical overlap that new and prototype (the critical comparison) sentences share with Acquisition items should be comparable.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Semantics of the Transitive Construction: Prototype Effects and Developmental Comparisons

et al. 2012

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This paper investigates whether an abstract linguistic construction shows the kind of prototype effects characteristic of non-linguistic categories, in both adults and young children. Adapting the prototype-plus-distortion methodology of Franks and Bransford (1971), we found that whereas adults were lured toward false-positive recognition of sentences with prototypical transitive semantics, young children showed no such effect. We examined two main implications of the results. First, it adds a novel data point to a growing body of research in cognitive linguistics and construction grammar that shows abstract linguistic categories can behave in similar ways to non-linguistic categories, for example, by showing graded membership of a category. Thus, the findings lend psychological validity to the existing cross-linguistic evidence for prototypical transitive semantics. Second, we discuss a possible explanation for the fact that prototypical sentences were processed differently in adults and children, namely, that children's transitive semantic network is not as interconnected or cognitively coherent as adults'.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

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confidence: 99%

Semantics of the Transitive Construction: Prototype Effects and Developmental Comparisons

et al. 2012

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“…Inferences are more likely in stories that are intact in a story grammar sense (e.g., Omanson et al, 1978). Finally, inferences are more likely if materials are structured so as to be compatible with world knowledge the child already possesses (e.g., Hildyard, 1979;Newcomb & Collins, 1979;Small & Butterworth, 1981). …”

Section: Going Beyond the Information Givenmentioning

confidence: 97%

Making Meaningful Materials Easier to Learn: Lessons from Cognitive Strategy Research

Pressley¹

1983

Springer Series in Cognitive Development

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By this point in the volume, it should be apparent that cognitive psychologists (and more specifically, the authors contributing to this book) are bullish on the position that use of strategies can increase learning. Nonetheless, it should also be obvious that learners (especially children) do not always use cognitive strategies that they could use, and that sometimes strategy usage is difficult even when strategy usage instructions are provided. That does not mean, however, that when learners cannot or do not execute strategies, cognitive strategy researchers have nothing to offer. In fact, cognitive strategy research includes a plethora of data on how to modify materials so that they are easier to comprehend and learn. In this chapter that research will be selectively reviewed.The principal concern in the chapter is with children's processing of meaningful materials including prose, television programs, and oral communication. The focus on these types of materials follows from my own research interests, as well as an awareness that much of cognitive psychology in recent years has been conducted in these content areas. However, readers should not assume that materials modifications recommendations based on cognitive research are limited to these domains. I hope that by explicating the relevance of cognitive research to materials development in the areas considered here, I will stimulate researchers with other substantive interests to reexamine research in their own problem areas with an eye toward materials development. Learning Materials and ResearchWell-intentioned educators and curriculum specialists have made many suggestions as to how to modify materials. One need only peruse any of a number of methods textbooks in language arts in order to generate a lengthy list of comments M. Pressley about how to prepare materials. Despite this large volume of suggestions, and even though publishers are constantly revising materials that are presented to children (e.g., Willows, Borwick, & Hayvren, 1981), evidence that materials modifications positively affect children's learning is scant (e.g., Levin & Pressley, 1981;Pressley, Levin, Kuiper, Bryant, & Michener, 1982). The research literature that does exist does little to inspire confidence in the wisdom of the armchair educator-analysts. For instance, many classroom tried and true vocabulary-learning techniques are no more effective than what learners do spontaneously (Levin, McCormick, Miller, Berry, & Pressley, 1982;Pressley, Levin, Kuiper, Bryant, & Michener, 1982). Moreover, in these same studies it has been demonstrated that techniques derived from conventional wisdom are impotent compared to alternatives based on cognitive learning approaches to vocabulary instruction. Such empirical failures reinforce the impression that many materials recommendations in the curriculum literature are probably wrong.That would not be so bad if children's learning of meaningful materials were proceeding smoothly. For readers uninitiated into the deficiencies evidenced and problem...

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“…Elementary school children in experiments by Markman (1977Markman ( , 1979 regularly failed to detect omissions and inconsistencies in instructions and prose passages, leading Markman (1981) to suggest that they tended to treat the individual statements of texts as isolated units instead of constructing integrated representations. Other investigators have shown that children between the ages of five and seven often do not integrate the information in a passage well enough to recognize implied relationships accurately (Liben and Posnansky, 1977;Moeser, 1976;Paris and Upton, 1976;Small and Butterworth, 1981), even when the separate items needed to make the correct inferences are available in memory (Collins and others, 1978;Schmidt and others, 1979). As a result, a young child who has heard a short descriptive passage, such as…”

Section: Children's Understanding Of Spoken Discoursementioning

confidence: 99%

Discourse structure and mental models

Bock

Brewer

1985

New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development

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This chapter focuses on the discourse features of text and their influence on comprehension and learning to read. O u r point of view is that discourse comprehension involves the construction by readers or listeners of mental models synthesized from the information in the text and their general knowledge. Within this framework, we examine five aspects of discourse comprehension, first in the context of young children's ability to understand spoken discourse, and then from the perspective of differences between speech and writing. These five aspects include the use of knowledge, the kinds of mental models that underlie different types of discourse, the global organization of texts, the use of discourse cues in the construction of mental models, and the integration of information into a mental model. We conclude by exploring some potential implications of this approach for the development of reading skill.

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Semantic Integration and the Development of Memory for Logical Inferences

Cited by 6 publications

References 9 publications

Semantics of the Transitive Construction: Prototype Effects and Developmental Comparisons

Semantics of the Transitive Construction: Prototype Effects and Developmental Comparisons

Making Meaningful Materials Easier to Learn: Lessons from Cognitive Strategy Research

Discourse structure and mental models

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