Automaticity and the Transfer of Mental Rotation Skills

Two experiments are presented that examine automaticity and transfer of mental rotation skills. The data from these experiments were analyzed using a curve-fitting technique that represents a departure from traditional methods used to analyze transfer. The first experiment demonstrated significant positive transfer from one letter stimulus to another. The second experiment examined the transfer of rotation skills from a letter to an abstract shape. This experiment demonstrated a reduced amount of transfer from letters to an abstract shape. Both experiments indicated that mental rotation skills may become automatic with practice.

Normal and Disabled Readers' Use of Orthographic Structure in Processing Print

Two experiments examined whether normal and disabled readers differed in the ability to use orthographic structure information to process printed material. Experiment 1 required subjects to search for a target letter in a six-letter stimulus array held in memory. Experiment 2 required subjects to make word-nonword decisions. Stimulus arrays for both experiments were words and nonwords varying in orthographic regularity and positional frequency. The results of Experiment 1 showed that both disabled and normal readers were able to perform the memory search task more accurately for letter strings high in either type of orthographic structure. In Experiment 2, disabled and younger normal readers produced decision times reflecting greater sensitivity than older normal readers to orthographic regularity. The finding that disabled readers use orthographic structure information to the same extent, and, under some circumstances, to a greater extent than normal readers supports the interactive-compensatory model of reading proposed by Stanovich (1980).

The Differential Effects of Phonics versus Sight-Recognition Methods of Teaching Reading on the Eye Movements of Good and Poor Second-Grade Readers

Four groups of second-grade subjects, good or poor readers who were respectively being taught reading by phonics or sight-recognition methods (N = 5 per group), were tachistoscopically shown and requested to read four replications of 20 four-letter stimulus words. Three aspects of eye movements were recorded. It was found that total number of eye movements, direction of the reading scan, and total scanning time were sensitive to an interaction of reading achievement and method of initial reading acquisition.