The reconstructive process in sentence memory

Language production: Methods and methodologies

“…For a host of reasons (see E. V Clark & H. H. Clark, 1978, for some of them), people tend to produce actives rather than passives, and one consequence is that many sentences that are presented as passives are recalled as actives. When this is taken into account, it appears that passives and actives can be understood equally well (James, Thompson, & Baldwin, 1973). What differs is how they are reconstructed-reproduced-in the production phase that recall requires.…”

Memory for musical surface

“…However, under some circumstances, verbatim memory can be quite accurate. James, Thompson, and Baldwin (1973) and Graesser and Mandler (1975) showed significant memory for surface structure when subjects were instructed to attend to wording. Even without such explicit instructions, memory for certain kinds of surface detail was quite accurate.…”

Recognition Memory for Logically Transformed Sentences

“…As James et al (1973) aptly put it, " whether one finds good or poor memory for surface-structure distinctions depends in part upon taskinduced strategies and demands [p. 611]" In the present experiment the instructions emphasized ` verbatim' memory, and our subjects did have some time for rehearsal between items.…”

“…Subjects may not be able to other hand, subjects may recognize the formal differences, at least when encouraged to do so. Data obtained by James, Thompson, and Baldwin (1973) suggest that subjects have generally good memory for the active-passive distinction. In all, Sachs' findings cannot readilly be generalized to sentence memory in different situations, especially memory for unrelated sentences.…”