Robert Lorch - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by Robert Lorch
Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 1987
Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 1982
How does the strength of an association determine the speed with which the association can be ret... more How does the strength of an association determine the speed with which the association can be retrieved? Three alternative classes of spreading activation models were developed and tested. All three models hypothesize a two-stage retrieval process consisting of an initial ...
Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 1981
ABSTRACT
Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 1978
ABSTRACT
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2013
ABSTRACT Printed signals are well-documented aids to reading and memory for expository text. Desp... more ABSTRACT Printed signals are well-documented aids to reading and memory for expository text. Despite their usefulness, many TTS applications fail to adequately communicate signaling. A theoretical framework called "SARA" provides an analysis of printed signals that identifies what specific information should be rendered in order to preserve the signaling function. Further, SARA identifies two important criteria --- the availability criterion and the accessibility criterion --- that should help guide the evaluation of alternative auditory renderings of signals.
Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society, 1985
ABSTRACT College subjects read and recalled one of two versions of the same text. One version of ... more ABSTRACT College subjects read and recalled one of two versions of the same text. One version of the text contained signals to both the general organization of the text and to the organization of specific sentences in the text; the alternate version did not contain organizational signals. Overall recall was better for the text with signals than for the text without signals because recall of specifically signaled information was aided by signaling. The magnitude of the signaling effect was related to subjects’ text recall abilities: Signaling effects were larger for better recallers than for poorer recallers.
Contemporary Educational Psychology
Journal of abnormal child psychology, 1999
In this study, the authors examined memory for televised stories to gain insight into similaritie... more In this study, the authors examined memory for televised stories to gain insight into similarities and differences in story comprehension between young children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and their typical peers. In particular, the authors investigated the extent to which 4- to 6-year-old children's free recall of story events is predicted by several structural properties of story events (number of causal connections, whether an event is on or off the story's causal chain, story-grammar category, and position in the story's hierarchical structure), whether differences exist between children with ADHD and nonreferred comparison children in their sensitivity to structural features of stories, and whether age differences in sensitivity to structural features are similar for both groups. For both groups, recall of story events was predicted by all four structural properties, but the effects of the two causal properties was stronger for comparison ch...
Developmental medicine and child neurology, 1985
This experiment tested the hypothesis that children with spina bifida and hydrocephalus (SBH) are... more This experiment tested the hypothesis that children with spina bifida and hydrocephalus (SBH) are more distractible than normal children, and that the distractibility partially accounts for the language deficits of these children. In Part 1, 15 of these children of primary-school age were compared with controls matched for mental age on a non-verbal task during which irrelevant stimuli were present or absent. Interference effects of the irrelevant stimuli were larger and more persistent for the SBH children. In Part 2, the children and their controls were tested for comprehension of relational words, with and without irrelevant information. The two groups performed similarly when there was no irrelevant information, but the SBH children exhibited vocabulary deficiencies when irrelevant items were present. These findings support the original hypothesis of a relationship between distractibility and language deficits.
Journal of Experimental Psychology-learning Memory and Cognition, 1990
Repeated measures designs involving nonorthogonal variables are being used with increasing freque... more Repeated measures designs involving nonorthogonal variables are being used with increasing frequency in cognitive psychology. Researchers usually analyze the data from such designs inappropriately, probably because the designs are not discussed in standard textbooks on regression. Two commonly used approaches to analyzing repeated measures designs are considered in this article. It is argued that both approaches use inappropriate error terms
Psicología Educativa, 2013
Two experiments compared the effects on text processing of headings and preview sentences that we... more Two experiments compared the effects on text processing of headings and preview sentences that were designed to communicate the same information about the texts' topics and their organization. In Experiment 1, college students read a text for understanding then were tested on memory for the subtopics and memory for simple facts presented in the text. Memory for subtopics was better for the text with headings; there was no difference between headings and preview sentences on memory for facts. In Experiment 2, participants read a text in order to outline it. Outlining was better if the text contained signals to topic structure than if the text did not contain signals, but there were no reliable differences between previews and headings. The findings show that previews function similarly to headings in a task that emphasizes the relevance of topic structure information, but they do not elicit readers' attention to topic information as readily as headings do. These results have implications for textbook design and instruction of comprehension strategies.
Scientific Studies of Reading, 2011
Four experiments tested a hypothesized function of signaling devices, namely, to communicate info... more Four experiments tested a hypothesized function of signaling devices, namely, to communicate information about text organization. Experiments 1 and 2 compared headings that communicated the hierarchical organization of text topics with headings that did not communicate the hierarchical organization. Signaling organization led to more complete and accurate outlines of a text. Experiment 3 compared headings that communicated the sequential organization of text topics with headings than did not communicate the organization. Signaling organization led to faster text search. Experiment 4 compared headings that emphasized the sequential organization of topics with headings that emphasized their hierarchical organization. In this comparison, sequential headings led to faster search times than hierarchical headings. Together, the results of the four experiments demonstrate (a) that signals can communicate two distinct types of organizational information, and (b) those two types of organization have distinct implications for text processing.
Memory & Cognition, 1980
Priming effects on sentence verification were investigated. The semantic relation of the prime an... more Priming effects on sentence verification were investigated. The semantic relation of the prime and the probe, and the interval between prime and probe presentation (SOA), were varied for both ambiguous and unambiguous sentences. Reaction time to decide that a sentence was true or false was longer if the preceding prime was a word that was unrelated to the probe than if the prime was the word "blank." In contradiction of Posner and Snyder's (1975) claim that conscious processes develop slowly, this result was found at SOAs as short as 250 msec. Verification performance was facilitated for both sentence types when the prime word was the first of the to-bepresented probe sentence, but the magnitude of the facilitation effects depended upon the truth value of the probe, the associative strength of the subject and predicate of the probe sentence, and upon SOA. These findings indicate that priming affects the processing of relations among concepts in semantic memory, as well as the encoding of the probe.
Memory & Cognition, 1986
The lexical decision task has been employed to investigate the effects of semantic context on wor... more The lexical decision task has been employed to investigate the effects of semantic context on word recognition. A frequent finding from the task is that "word" responses are slower when the target is preceded by an unrelated word than when it is preceded by a neutral stimulus. This inhibition effect has been interpreted as indicating that the unrelated prime interferes with wordrecognition processes operating on the target. In three experiments, the effects ofunrelated primes were compared for a lexical decision and word naming task. Although large inhibition effects were found for the lexical decision task in all experiments, no inhibition effects were observed for the naming task. The results are interpreted as demonstrating that inhibition effects in the lexical decision task are not on recognition processes; rather they are located at processes oparating after recognition of the target has occurred.
Memory & Cognition, 2000
College students were videotaped while they searched chapter-length texts for answers to specific... more College students were videotaped while they searched chapter-length texts for answers to specific questions. The texts either did not contain headings or contained one of three types of headings that varied in the information that they provided about text organization and content. Familiarity with the text was varied by manipulating (1) the number of prior searches ofthe text and (2) whether or not the text was read before searching. Measures were taken of the time spent examining each page and of the sequence of examination of pages. Cluster analyses of the search measures revealed that familiarity with the text influenced a searcher's strategy for selecting which pages to examine. Once a page was selected for examination, both headings and familiarity influenced how the page was inspected.
Learning and Instruction, 2004
Effects of topic headings on the processing of multiple-topic expository texts were exam- 19 ined... more Effects of topic headings on the processing of multiple-topic expository texts were exam- 19 ined with the help of readers' eye fixation patterns. Adult participants read two texts, one in 20 which topic shifts were signaled by topic headings and one in which topic headings were 21 excluded. The presence of topic headings facilitated the processing of topic sentences and 22 increased the number of topics mentioned in the text summaries written after reading the 23 texts. The facilitatory effect of headings was reflected both in the fixations made during the 24 first-pass reading as well as in the later look-backs directed to the topic sentences. A frame-25 work is outlined to depict the process of reading and comprehending multiple-topic exposi-26 tory texts. propositions expressed in the text, the reader gradually builds a network of propo-40 sitions that captures both the local and global coherence relations expressed by the 41 author. With the support of background knowledge relevant to the topics of the 42 text, the reader may construct a representation not just of the relations among the 43 text propositions, but of the situation described in the text. For example, in an 44 expository text describing various attributes of a country, a reader may come to 45 understand how the geography of the country shaped aspects of the economic, 46 social and political development of the country. Thus, comprehension of a text 47 involves the construction of a complex memory representation under the con-48 straints of limited working memory capacity (Kintsch, 1998). 49 According to this view of text comprehension, the processing of the main topics 50 of a text plays a critical role in the construction of a mental representation of the 51 text. Topics serve as a context for the integration of subordinate information and 52 thus contribute to the local coherence of a text. In addition, the relationships 53 among a text's topics must be recognized and represented if the reader's represen-54 tation is to be globally coherent. Finally, the identification of a text topic serves to 55 activate relevant prior knowledge in support of the reader's attempts to construct a 56 valid model of the situation communicated by the author. Presumably because they 57 recognize the demands of topic processing, authors often use signaling devices to 58 help readers identify topics and their relationships (Lorch, 1989). In this study, we 59 examine the influence of a particular signaling device, headings, on the processing 60 of sentences that are relevant to the text's topic structure. We first review evidence 61 concerning the nature of on-line processing associated with the processing of text 62 topics during reading. Next, we review what is known about the effects of topic-sig-63 naling devices on text processing and memory. Finally, we present an experiment 64 that uses eyetracking methods to test our hypotheses about how headings influence 65 the processing of topic relevant information. 66 1.1. The demands of processing a text's topic structure 67
Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 1987
Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 1982
How does the strength of an association determine the speed with which the association can be ret... more How does the strength of an association determine the speed with which the association can be retrieved? Three alternative classes of spreading activation models were developed and tested. All three models hypothesize a two-stage retrieval process consisting of an initial ...
Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 1981
ABSTRACT
Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 1978
ABSTRACT
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2013
ABSTRACT Printed signals are well-documented aids to reading and memory for expository text. Desp... more ABSTRACT Printed signals are well-documented aids to reading and memory for expository text. Despite their usefulness, many TTS applications fail to adequately communicate signaling. A theoretical framework called "SARA" provides an analysis of printed signals that identifies what specific information should be rendered in order to preserve the signaling function. Further, SARA identifies two important criteria --- the availability criterion and the accessibility criterion --- that should help guide the evaluation of alternative auditory renderings of signals.
Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society, 1985
ABSTRACT College subjects read and recalled one of two versions of the same text. One version of ... more ABSTRACT College subjects read and recalled one of two versions of the same text. One version of the text contained signals to both the general organization of the text and to the organization of specific sentences in the text; the alternate version did not contain organizational signals. Overall recall was better for the text with signals than for the text without signals because recall of specifically signaled information was aided by signaling. The magnitude of the signaling effect was related to subjects’ text recall abilities: Signaling effects were larger for better recallers than for poorer recallers.
Contemporary Educational Psychology
Journal of abnormal child psychology, 1999
In this study, the authors examined memory for televised stories to gain insight into similaritie... more In this study, the authors examined memory for televised stories to gain insight into similarities and differences in story comprehension between young children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and their typical peers. In particular, the authors investigated the extent to which 4- to 6-year-old children's free recall of story events is predicted by several structural properties of story events (number of causal connections, whether an event is on or off the story's causal chain, story-grammar category, and position in the story's hierarchical structure), whether differences exist between children with ADHD and nonreferred comparison children in their sensitivity to structural features of stories, and whether age differences in sensitivity to structural features are similar for both groups. For both groups, recall of story events was predicted by all four structural properties, but the effects of the two causal properties was stronger for comparison ch...
Developmental medicine and child neurology, 1985
This experiment tested the hypothesis that children with spina bifida and hydrocephalus (SBH) are... more This experiment tested the hypothesis that children with spina bifida and hydrocephalus (SBH) are more distractible than normal children, and that the distractibility partially accounts for the language deficits of these children. In Part 1, 15 of these children of primary-school age were compared with controls matched for mental age on a non-verbal task during which irrelevant stimuli were present or absent. Interference effects of the irrelevant stimuli were larger and more persistent for the SBH children. In Part 2, the children and their controls were tested for comprehension of relational words, with and without irrelevant information. The two groups performed similarly when there was no irrelevant information, but the SBH children exhibited vocabulary deficiencies when irrelevant items were present. These findings support the original hypothesis of a relationship between distractibility and language deficits.
Journal of Experimental Psychology-learning Memory and Cognition, 1990
Repeated measures designs involving nonorthogonal variables are being used with increasing freque... more Repeated measures designs involving nonorthogonal variables are being used with increasing frequency in cognitive psychology. Researchers usually analyze the data from such designs inappropriately, probably because the designs are not discussed in standard textbooks on regression. Two commonly used approaches to analyzing repeated measures designs are considered in this article. It is argued that both approaches use inappropriate error terms
Psicología Educativa, 2013
Two experiments compared the effects on text processing of headings and preview sentences that we... more Two experiments compared the effects on text processing of headings and preview sentences that were designed to communicate the same information about the texts' topics and their organization. In Experiment 1, college students read a text for understanding then were tested on memory for the subtopics and memory for simple facts presented in the text. Memory for subtopics was better for the text with headings; there was no difference between headings and preview sentences on memory for facts. In Experiment 2, participants read a text in order to outline it. Outlining was better if the text contained signals to topic structure than if the text did not contain signals, but there were no reliable differences between previews and headings. The findings show that previews function similarly to headings in a task that emphasizes the relevance of topic structure information, but they do not elicit readers' attention to topic information as readily as headings do. These results have implications for textbook design and instruction of comprehension strategies.
Scientific Studies of Reading, 2011
Four experiments tested a hypothesized function of signaling devices, namely, to communicate info... more Four experiments tested a hypothesized function of signaling devices, namely, to communicate information about text organization. Experiments 1 and 2 compared headings that communicated the hierarchical organization of text topics with headings that did not communicate the hierarchical organization. Signaling organization led to more complete and accurate outlines of a text. Experiment 3 compared headings that communicated the sequential organization of text topics with headings than did not communicate the organization. Signaling organization led to faster text search. Experiment 4 compared headings that emphasized the sequential organization of topics with headings that emphasized their hierarchical organization. In this comparison, sequential headings led to faster search times than hierarchical headings. Together, the results of the four experiments demonstrate (a) that signals can communicate two distinct types of organizational information, and (b) those two types of organization have distinct implications for text processing.
Memory & Cognition, 1980
Priming effects on sentence verification were investigated. The semantic relation of the prime an... more Priming effects on sentence verification were investigated. The semantic relation of the prime and the probe, and the interval between prime and probe presentation (SOA), were varied for both ambiguous and unambiguous sentences. Reaction time to decide that a sentence was true or false was longer if the preceding prime was a word that was unrelated to the probe than if the prime was the word "blank." In contradiction of Posner and Snyder's (1975) claim that conscious processes develop slowly, this result was found at SOAs as short as 250 msec. Verification performance was facilitated for both sentence types when the prime word was the first of the to-bepresented probe sentence, but the magnitude of the facilitation effects depended upon the truth value of the probe, the associative strength of the subject and predicate of the probe sentence, and upon SOA. These findings indicate that priming affects the processing of relations among concepts in semantic memory, as well as the encoding of the probe.
Memory & Cognition, 1986
The lexical decision task has been employed to investigate the effects of semantic context on wor... more The lexical decision task has been employed to investigate the effects of semantic context on word recognition. A frequent finding from the task is that "word" responses are slower when the target is preceded by an unrelated word than when it is preceded by a neutral stimulus. This inhibition effect has been interpreted as indicating that the unrelated prime interferes with wordrecognition processes operating on the target. In three experiments, the effects ofunrelated primes were compared for a lexical decision and word naming task. Although large inhibition effects were found for the lexical decision task in all experiments, no inhibition effects were observed for the naming task. The results are interpreted as demonstrating that inhibition effects in the lexical decision task are not on recognition processes; rather they are located at processes oparating after recognition of the target has occurred.
Memory & Cognition, 2000
College students were videotaped while they searched chapter-length texts for answers to specific... more College students were videotaped while they searched chapter-length texts for answers to specific questions. The texts either did not contain headings or contained one of three types of headings that varied in the information that they provided about text organization and content. Familiarity with the text was varied by manipulating (1) the number of prior searches ofthe text and (2) whether or not the text was read before searching. Measures were taken of the time spent examining each page and of the sequence of examination of pages. Cluster analyses of the search measures revealed that familiarity with the text influenced a searcher's strategy for selecting which pages to examine. Once a page was selected for examination, both headings and familiarity influenced how the page was inspected.
Learning and Instruction, 2004
Effects of topic headings on the processing of multiple-topic expository texts were exam- 19 ined... more Effects of topic headings on the processing of multiple-topic expository texts were exam- 19 ined with the help of readers' eye fixation patterns. Adult participants read two texts, one in 20 which topic shifts were signaled by topic headings and one in which topic headings were 21 excluded. The presence of topic headings facilitated the processing of topic sentences and 22 increased the number of topics mentioned in the text summaries written after reading the 23 texts. The facilitatory effect of headings was reflected both in the fixations made during the 24 first-pass reading as well as in the later look-backs directed to the topic sentences. A frame-25 work is outlined to depict the process of reading and comprehending multiple-topic exposi-26 tory texts. propositions expressed in the text, the reader gradually builds a network of propo-40 sitions that captures both the local and global coherence relations expressed by the 41 author. With the support of background knowledge relevant to the topics of the 42 text, the reader may construct a representation not just of the relations among the 43 text propositions, but of the situation described in the text. For example, in an 44 expository text describing various attributes of a country, a reader may come to 45 understand how the geography of the country shaped aspects of the economic, 46 social and political development of the country. Thus, comprehension of a text 47 involves the construction of a complex memory representation under the con-48 straints of limited working memory capacity (Kintsch, 1998). 49 According to this view of text comprehension, the processing of the main topics 50 of a text plays a critical role in the construction of a mental representation of the 51 text. Topics serve as a context for the integration of subordinate information and 52 thus contribute to the local coherence of a text. In addition, the relationships 53 among a text's topics must be recognized and represented if the reader's represen-54 tation is to be globally coherent. Finally, the identification of a text topic serves to 55 activate relevant prior knowledge in support of the reader's attempts to construct a 56 valid model of the situation communicated by the author. Presumably because they 57 recognize the demands of topic processing, authors often use signaling devices to 58 help readers identify topics and their relationships (Lorch, 1989). In this study, we 59 examine the influence of a particular signaling device, headings, on the processing 60 of sentences that are relevant to the text's topic structure. We first review evidence 61 concerning the nature of on-line processing associated with the processing of text 62 topics during reading. Next, we review what is known about the effects of topic-sig-63 naling devices on text processing and memory. Finally, we present an experiment 64 that uses eyetracking methods to test our hypotheses about how headings influence 65 the processing of topic relevant information. 66 1.1. The demands of processing a text's topic structure 67