To address methodological questions regarding use of the think-aloud (TA) procedure and theoretical questions regarding the roles of prior knowledge and strategy use in reading comprehension, 24 college students each read 3 passages in 3 different presentation modes (marked TA, unmarked TA, and control) and answered essay comprehension questions. There was no effect of presentation mode on essay scores. TA comments were coded into 4 categories, 2 of which were significantly correlated with comprehension scores for marked but not unmarked passages. The authors conclude that the marked procedure elicited more veridical protocols. A second coding and analysis of the marked protocols showed that students who scored high on the comprehension test were more likely to have made many TA comments reflecting a "knowledge-transforming" approach to the text.

The effects of addition of pictorial materials on the stimulus side of paired associates was studied in two experiments. In the first experiment, 80 third-grade children learned a nine-item, paralog-word list composed of three stimulus conditions: control (C), picture (P), and accentuation (A). Three types of items were included within Condition A to allow for differentiation of accentuation effects due to increased proximity of picture to word (superimpositiou and one letter) and effects due to figural unity (inclusion). Acquisition and retention of A items was superior to that of P or C items which did not differ. The accentuation effect was found to be due to the inclusion type of accentuation that maximally integrates the stimulus word and picture, indicating that figural unity, not just proximity, is critical to facilitated learning. Experiment II was designed to examine the relative contributions of interaction and meaningfulness of interaction in paired-associate learning. Two hundred and forty children learned lists of word pairs. Two conditions in addition to those in Experiment I were verbal context (V) and picture interaction (I). The results indicated that interaction, even when nonmeaningful, was more facilitating than juxtaposition of picture and word. The implications for presentation of first-and second-language vocabulary items were discussed.

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