Recall From Single Versus Dual Theme Texts

S ummary . The capacity of 10‐year‐olds in coping with a mixed (double theme) text was examined. In a “distributed” version of the mixed text a story theme was used to carry an additional load of historical information which was evenly distributed throughout the narrative. In a second “consolidated” version of the mixed text the history material occurred en bloc midway through the story. Performance on the mixed texts was compared with that in a “separated” condition where the story and history information were presented in two separate texts. Recall of the history material was substantially better in the separated text condition than in either of the other two and recall of the story was poorer in the consolidated than in either of the other two conditions. The findings are interpreted in terms of the effects of attentional set and the extra processing demands incurred in disentangling two different themes in a mixed type text

Art · Cognitive psychology · Coping (psychology) · Literature · Narrative · Recall · Set (abstract data type) · Theme (computing) · Computer Science · Educational Strategies and Epistemologies · Educator Training and Historical Pedagogy · Psychology · Reading and Literacy Development · Social Psychology