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RECALL FROM SINGLE VERSUS DUAL THEME TEXTS
Author(s) -
BILL J. M.
Publication year - 1986
Publication title -
british journal of educational psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.557
H-Index - 95
eISSN - 2044-8279
pISSN - 0007-0998
DOI - 10.1111/j.2044-8279.1986.tb03041.x
Subject(s) - recall , theme (computing) , narrative , psychology , set (abstract data type) , coping (psychology) , social psychology , cognitive psychology , literature , art , computer science , programming language , operating system , psychiatry
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.