Use Of Rehearsal Strategies Research Articles

Effectiveness and Retention of Teaching Memory Strategy Use to Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder

Although low levels of memory strategy use have been found in children with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs), few studies have explored the effectiveness of interventions for improving strategy use with this population. In two studies, we examined the short- and longer term effectiveness of rehearsal strategy training. In Study 1, children with ASD made strong gains during a focused teaching session, but rehearsal strategy use was not well maintained after training. In Study 2, we increased training with multiple individualized sessions. Longer term maintenance of gains occurred, demonstrating the possibility of successfully teaching and generalizing of strategy use, findings that have important implications for classroom and intervention contexts with children with ASD.

B-59Neural Activity Associated with Rehearsal Strategy Use on a Working Memory Task

B-59Neural Activity Associated with Rehearsal Strategy Use on a Working Memory Task

Spontaneous strategy use in children with autism spectrum disorder: the roles of metamemory and language skills.

Metamemory, or beliefs about one’s own memory capabilities, knowing what you know, and knowing what you don’t know, has frequently been linked to the spontaneous use of rehearsal strategies in typically developing children. However, limited research has investigated mnemonic strategy use, metamemory, or the relationship between these two cognitive processes in children with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). The current study examined the relative strength of metamemory knowledge and language skills as predictors of rehearsal use and memory performance in individuals with ASD. Twenty-one children with ASD and 21 children in a combined comparison group were matched on chronological and verbal mental age. Over two sessions, participants completed a serial recall task, a language measure, and a metamemory questionnaire. Children were classified as rehearsers/non-rehearsers based on behavioral observations and/or verbal reports of strategy use. As expected from previous research, the comparison group had a significantly higher proportion of rehearsers than the ASD group. However, spontaneous rehearsers performed significantly better on the serial recall task than non-rehearsers, regardless of group membership. Children in the comparison group had a higher mean total score on the metamemory questionnaire than the ASD group. However, when examined by rehearsal use, participants classified as rehearsers, regardless of diagnostic group, scored significantly higher on the metamemory questionnaire than non-rehearsers. Finally, across groups, hierarchical regression analyses identified both metamemory and language proficiency as significant predictors of rehearsal strategy use. The fact that the predictors showed the same relationship across the comparison group and the ASD group implies that metamemory and language proficiency, while separate entities, are both fundamental underlying skills contributing to the emergence of rehearsal strategies, and that the results are likely generalizable to other populations with developmental challenges.

Examining Preservice Music Teacher Concerns in Peer- and Field-Teaching Settings

The purpose of this study was to examine the concerns of preservice music teachers using the Fuller and Bown teacher concerns model. Participants were 12 senior-level instrumental music education majors enrolled at a medium-size American public university. A video-assisted, stimulated recall method was used to interview participants after two peer-teaching and two field-teaching episodes. Data consisted of 1,019 coded statements drawn from more than 900 min of interviews. Task concerns were the most reported in all interviews, followed by self concerns and student impact concerns. Task concerns decreased across the four teaching episodes, while student impact concerns increased from the first field-teaching episode to the second. Rehearsal strategy use, evaluation of teaching, and individual student impact were the most frequently coded task, self, and student impact concerns, respectively. Overall, participants reported that peer teaching was more difficult and stressful than field teaching. Implications of the Fuller and Bown framework as well as additional future research directions are proposed.

The role of the conductor’s goal orientation and use of shared performance cues on collegiate instrumentalists’ motivational beliefs and performance in large musical ensembles

This study examined the effects of the conductor’s goal orientation (mastery vs. performance) and use of shared performance cues (basic vs. interpretive vs. expressive) on instrumentalists’ self-efficacy, collective efficacy, attributions, and performance. Eighty-one college instrumentalists from two musical ensembles participated in the study. It was hypothesized that instrumentalists who undergo a mastery goal-oriented rehearsal and experience a conductor’s use of expressive shared performance cues would report higher levels in all measures than those who undergo a performance goal-oriented rehearsal and are exposed to interpretive performance cues, which in turn surpass those who experience basic performance cues. Results indicated that participants in the mastery goal orientation condition reported higher levels of collective and self-efficacy beliefs and attributed the success or failure of the ensemble most frequently to the conductor’s use of rehearsal strategies (i.e., baton technique, verbal directions regarding the music). In addition, the conductor’s use of expressive shared performance cues had a significant impact on instrumentalists’ collective efficacy, self-efficacy, performance, and attributions. Findings of this study may provide some guidance on how conductors can create effective rehearsal environments.

Input, Retention, and Output Factors Affecting Adult Age Differences in Visuospatial Short-Term Memory

The sources of age differences in short-term memory for spatial locations were explored in 2 experiments that examined factors related to input, to maintenance, and to output. In each experiment, 4 dots were presented briefly, followed after a retention interval by a probe dot, which was judged to either match or not match one of the 4 memory-set dots. Results showed that poorer performance by older adults could be attributed independently to reduced visual acuity, to less effective use of rehearsal strategies, and to differences in response biases.

Rehearsal strategy use in Alzheimer's disease

Memory strategy usage and awareness of memory performance are both crucial for memory rehabilitation. We explored Alzheimer's patients' ability to apply and control learning strategies and also their ability to predict the effect of these strategies on subsequent performance. In a rehearsal condition, participants were explicitly asked to overtly rehearse words and were given as long as they liked at study. In a control condition, participants read the words passively at a fixed presentation rate. In all groups, recall was superior in the rehearsal condition than in the reading condition. Alzheimer's patients showed different strategy usage. Overall, people with Alzheimer's disease spend longer studying to-be-remembered words under unpaced conditions, but they do not use this time to rehearse to the same extent as controls. We hypothesize that this failure to rehearse could be based on the inability to use effortful executive mechanisms involved during study.

Turkish high school students' biology achievement in relation to academic self-regulation

This study aimed at investigating the contribution of motivational beliefs, cognitive, and metacognitive strategy use to Turkish high school students' achievement in biology. In order to investigate the specified purpose of the study, 519 tenth-grade students were administered the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (Pintrich, Smith, Garcia, & McKeachie, 1991) and a Biology Achievement Test developed by the researchers. Results of multiple linear regression analyses showed that extrinsic goal orientation, task value, rehearsal strategy use, organization strategy use, management of time and study environment, and peer learning contributed significantly to the prediction of achievement scores.

An empirical test of Woody and Bowers’s dissociated-control theory of hypnosis

Woody and Bowers’s dissociated-control theory predicts impaired performance on tasks indexing frontally mediated supervisory attentional functions during hypnosis, especially for high susceptibles. This prediction is tested using Stroop task behavioral performance to measure aspects of anterior-mediated supervisory attentional function. All measures of anterior-mediated attentional functions significantly declined during hypnosis. Interactions between susceptibility and hypnosis condition showed specific changes among hypnotized high susceptibles. Total Stroop errors (failures of attentional suppression) were significantly higher in hypnosis for high, but not low, susceptibles. Tellegen’s experiential mental set was highest for hypnotized highs. Use of rehearsal strategy (instrumental set) decreased significantly in hypnosis but more so for highs than lows. Results suggest that “absorption” in hypnosis may be a consequence of dissociated anterior attentional control. It is proposed that dissociated control emerges from the functional disconnection of left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and anterior cingulate cortex.

Developing Motivation and Cognitive Learning Strategies Through an Undergraduate Learning Community

This study describes the effects on student motivation and cognitive learning strategies of an approach involving an undergraduate learner-centered community of learners approach to instruction. Six learning communities were created using the following objectives: integrated courses, active and collaborative learning, and opportunities for learning through information technology and library resources. Instructors attended ten workshops designed to assist them in developing the learning communities according to the objectives of the program. Results indicate significant changes in motivation and cognitive strategy use by the end of participation in the learning community. Within the motivation subscales, students in the learning communities reported significantly higher levels of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, more internal control of their learning, and self-efficacy, along with significantly lower levels of test anxiety and task value. Within the learning strategies subscales, students reported increases in their use of rehearsal strategies, organization strategies, critical thinking, time management, and the use of peer learning and help-seeking behaviors.

The association of elaborative or maintenance rehearsal with age, reading comprehension, and verbal working memory performance

Elaborative or maintenance rehearsal strategy-use during a verbal working memory task was the grouping variable for a study that tested whether group membership distinguished 53 healthy adults by age, education, or performance on reading comprehension and verbal working memory tasks. No significant differences in age or reading comprehension emerged as a function of strategy-use. However, the elaborative strategy group had significantly better performance on one measure of verbal working memory. Several within age-group differences as a function of strategy-use were also significant. Younger adults who used elaborative rehearsal had superior working memory measures, and older adults who used elaborative rehearsal had superior reading comprehension measures, suggesting elaborative rehearsal's memory-enhancing function in verbal working memory and reading comprehension tasks.

Verbal rehearsal and memory in children with closed head injury: A quantitative and qualitative analysis

Nine closed head injured (CHI) children (mean age = 11.4 years) with post-onset intervals of seven months to eight years were studied. The CHI children ranged from mild-moderate to severely impaired. Nine normally developing children (mean age = 10.9 years) served as controls. An overt rehearsal free recall task was used. Subjects were instructed to “think aloud” following presentation of each item to-be-recalled. Quantitative analyses suggested impaired verbal recall and inefficient, passive rehearsal strategy use in severely injured subjects. Mild-moderate subjects performed similarly to controls and exhibited active rehearsal strategy use. Qualitative analysis revealed differences between CHI subjects and controls' range of rehearsal strategies, monitoring and metamemory. Implications for clinical assessment and intervention with respect to use of rehearsal strategies are discussed.

Movement Retrieval from Long-Term Memory: Physical versus Mental Rehearsal

Despite references in the psychomotor literature regarding the use of rehearsal strategies in recovering movements from longer term memory, no significant difference between physical (overt) and mental (covert) rehearsal strategies for retrieving a complex dance movement over 30 min., 2 days, and 1 wk. were observed for 72 college women in beginning dance classes. Further, no rehearsal was as effective as either physical or mental rehearsal for retrieving dance movements for up to 1 wk. after original learning by these inexperienced dancers. The findings raise the possibility that other forms of retrieval than those already proposed are used to recover complex dance movements from longer term memory.

P300 and recall in an incidental memory paradigm.

ABSTRACTIn previous research Karis, Fabiani, and Donchin (1984) found a relationship between the amplitude of the P300s elicited by words and subsequent recall performance. Words later recalled elicited larger P300s than words later not recalled. However, this relationship was dependent on the mnemonic strategies used by the subjects. There was a strong relationship between P300 amplitude and recall when rote rehearsal strategies were used, but when subjects used elaborative strategies the relationship between P300 amplitude and recall was not evident. In the present experiment we employed an incidental memory paradigm to reduce the use of rehearsal strategies. An “oddball’ task consisting of a series of names was presented, and subjects were required to count either the male or the female names. Event‐related brain potentials were recorded to the presentation of each name. Following the oddball task, subjects were asked, unexpectedly, to recall as many names as possible. The names that were recalled had elicited, on their initial presentation, larger P300s than names not recalled. Thus, these results confirm our hypothesis: when elaborative rehearsal strategies are not used, the relationship between P300 and memory emerges more consistently. Our data provide support for a “context updating’ hypothesis of the functional significance of the P300.