Abstract
Signals are writing devices that emphasize aspects of a text's content or structure without adding to the content of the the text. Findings are reviewed for studies of several different types of signaling devices, including: titles, headings, previews, overviews, summaries, typographical cues, recall sentences, number signals, importance indicators, and summary indicators. Most investigations have examined how the presence of signals in a text affects subsequent memory for the text. Virtually all types of signals produce better memory for information they cue in a text, whereas memory for unsignaled information often is unaffected. Less attention has been directed to signaling effects on other cognitive processes, such as attention, basic reading processes, and comprehension. It is argued that an understanding of how signals influence these processes will contribute to the application of signaling research to reading and writing instruction and to our general understanding of reading.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Bock, M. (1980). Some effects of titles on building and recalling text structures.Discourse Processes 3: 301–311.
Bransford, J. D., and Johnson, M. K. (1972). Contextual prerequisites for understanding.J. Verb. Learn. Verb. Behav. 11: 717–726.
Britton, B. K., Glynn, S. M., Meyer, B. J. F., and Penland, M. J. (1982). Effects of text structure on use of cognitive capacity during reading.J. Educat. Psychol. 74: 51–61.
Brooks, L. W., Dansereau, D. F., Spurlin, J. E., and Holley, C. D. (1983). Effects of headings on text processing.J. Educat. Psychol. 75: 292–302.
Cashen, V. M., and Leicht, K. L. (1970). Role of the isolation effect in a formal educational setting.J. Educat. Psychol. 61: 484–486.
Christensen, C. M., and Stordahl, K. E. (1955). The effect of organization aids on comprehension and retention.J. Educat. Psychol. 46: 65–74.
Coles, P., and Foster, J. (1975). Typographic cueing as an aid to learning from typewritten text.Prog. Learn. Educat. Tech. 12: 102–108.
Crouse, J. H., and Idstein, P. (1972). Effects of encoding cues on prose learning.J. Educat. Psychol. 63: 309–313.
Dee-Lucas, D., and DiVesta, F. J. (1980). Learner-generated organizational aids: Effects on learning from text.J. Educat. Psychol. 72: 304–311.
van Dijk, T. A. (1979). Relevance assignment in discourse comprehension.Discourse Processes 2: 113–126.
Doctorow, M., Wittrock, M. C., and Marks, C. (1978). Generative processes in reading comprehension.J. Educat. Psychol. 70: 109–118.
Dooling, D. J., and Lachman, R. (1971). Effects of comprehension on retention of prose.J. Exper. Psychol. 88: 216–222.
Dooling, D. J., and Mullet, R. L. (1973). Locus of thematic effects in retention of prose.J. Exper. Psychol. 97: 404–406.
Foster, J. J. (1979). The use of visual cues in text. In Kolers, P. A. Wrolstad, M. E. and Bouma H., (eds.),Processing of Visible Language, Vol. 1, Plenum Press, New York, pp. 189–203.
Fowler, R. L., and Barker, A. S. (1974). Effectiveness of highlighting for retention of text material.J. Appl. Psychol. 59: 358–364.
Frase, L. T. (1969). Paragraph organization of written materials: The influence of conceptual clustering upon the level and organization of recall.J. Educat. Psychol. 60: 394–401.
Frase, L. T., and Schwartz, B. J. (1979). Typographical cues that facilitate comprehension.J. Educat. Psychol. 71: 197–206.
Glover, J. A., Dinnel, D. L., Halpain, D. R., McKee, T. K., Corkill, A. J., and Wise, S. L. (1988). Effects of across-chapter signals on recall of text.J. Educat. Psychol. 80: 3–15.
Glynn, S. M. (1978). Capturing readers' attention by means of typographical cuing strategies.Educat. Technol. 18: 7–12.
Glynn, S. M., and DiVesta, F. J. (1979). Control of prose processing via instructional and typographical cues.J. Educat. Psychol. 71: 595–603.
Goetz, E. T., Alexander, P. A., and Schallert, D. L. (1987). The author's role in cueing strategic processing of college textbooks.Red. Res. Instruct. 27: 1–11.
Goldman, S. R. (1988).Strategies for Understanding Information Organization in Discourse, paper presented at the Psychonomics Society Convention, Chicago.
Guthrie, J. T. (1988). Locating information in documents: Examination of a cognitive model.Read. Res. Quart. 23: 178–199.
Hartley, J., Bartlett, S., and Branthwaite, A. (1980). Underlining can make a difference-sometimes.J. Educat. Res. 73: 218–224.
Hartley, J., Goldie, M., and Steen, L. (1979). The role and position of summaries: Some issues and data.Educat. Rev. 31: 59–65.
Hartley, J., Kenely, J., Owen, G., and Trueman, M. (1980). The effect of headings on children's recall from prose text.Brit. J. Educat. Psychol. 5: 304–307.
Hartley, J., Morris, P., and Trueman, M. (1981). Headings in text.Remed. Educat. 16: 5–7.
Hartley, J., and Trueman, M. (1982). The effects of summaries on the recall of information from prose: Five experimental studies.Human Learn 1: 63–82.
Hartley, J., and Trueman, M. (1985). A research strategy for text designers: The role of headings.Instruct. Sci. 14: 99–155.
Hershberger, W. (1964). Self-evaluational responding and typographical cueing: Techniques for programing self-instructional reading materials.J. Educat. Psychol. 55: 288–296.
Hershberger, W., and Terry, D. F. (1965). Typographical cuing in conventional and programmed texts.J. Appl. Psychol. 49: 55–60.
Holley, C. D., Dansereau, D. F., Evans, S. H., Collins, K. W., Brooks, L., and Larson, D. (1981). Utilizing intact and embedded headings as processing aids with nonnarrative text.Contemp. Educat. Psychol. 6: 227–236.
Idstein, P., and Jenkins, J. R. (1972). Underlining versus repetitive reading.J. Educat. Res. 65: 321–323.
Kintsch, W., and van Dijk, T. A. (1978). Toward a model of discourse comprehension and production.Psychol. Rev. 85: 363–394.
Kirsch, I. S., and Guthrie, J. T. (1984). Prose comprehension and text search as a function of reading volume.Read. Res. Quart. 19: 331–342.
Klare, G. R., Mabry, J. E., and Gustafson, L. M. (1955). The relationship of patterning (underlining) to immediate retention and to acceptability of technical material.J. Appl. Psychol. 39: 40–42.
Klare, G. R., Shuford, E. H., and Nichols, W. H. (1958). The relation of format organization to learning.Educat. Res. Bull. 37: 39–45.
Kozminsky, E. (1977). Altering comprehension: The effect of biasing titles on text comprehension.Mem. Cognit. 5: 482–490.
Kulhavy, R. W. (1972). Effects of embedding orienting stimuli in a prose passage.Psychonom. Sci. 28: 213–214.
Loman, N. L., and Mayer, R. E. (1983). Signaling techniques that increase the understandability of expository prose.J. Educat. Psychol. 75: 402–412.
Lorch, R. F., Jr. (1985). Effects on recall of signals to text organization.Bull. Psychonom. Soc. 23: 374–376.
Lorch, R. F., Jr., and Chen, A. H. (1986). Effects of number signals on reading and recall.J. Educat. Psychol. 78: 263–270.
Lorch, R. F., Jr., and Lorch, E. P. (1985). Topic structure representation and text recall.J. Educat. Psychol. 77: 137–148.
Lorch, R. F., Jr., and Lorch, E. P. (1986). On-line processing of summary and important signals in reading.Discourse Processes 9: 489–496.
Lorch, R. F., Jr., Lorch, E. P., and Matthews, P. D. (1985). On-line processing of the topic structure of a text.J. Mem. Lang. 24: 350–362.
Mayer, R. E. (1984). Aids to text comprehension.Educat. Psychol. 19: 30–42.
Mayer, R. E., Dyck, L. K., and Cook, J. L. (1984). Techniques that help readers build mental models from scientific text: Definitions pretraining and signaling.J. Educat. Psychol. 76: 1089–1105.
McLaughlin-Cook, N. (1981). Summaries: Further issues and data.Educat. Rev. 33: 215–222.
Meyer, B. J. F. (1975).The Organization of Prose and Its Effects on Memory Elsevier, New York.
Meyer, B. J. F., Brandt, D. M., and Bluth, G. J. (1980). Use of top-level structure in text: Key for reading comprehension of ninth-grade students.Read. Res. Quart. 16: 72–103.
Meyer, B. J. F., and Rice, E. (1982). The interaction of reader strategies and the organization of text.Text 2: 155–192.
Nist, S. L., and Hogrebe, M. C. (1987). The role of underlining and annotating in remembering textual information.Read. Res. Instruct. 27: 12–25.
Parker, J. P. (1962). Some organizational aids and their effect upon comprehension.J. Commun. 12: 27–32.
Pratt, M. W., Krane, A. R., and Kendall, J. R. (1981). Triggering a schema: The role of italics and intonation in the interpretation of ambiguous discourse.Am. Educat. Res. J. 18: 303–315.
Proger, B. B., Carter, C. E., Jr., Mann, L., Taylor, R. G., Jr., Bayuk, R. J., Jr., Morris, V. R., and Reckless, D. E., (1973). Advance and concurrent organizers for detailed verbal passages used with elementary school pupils.J. Educat. Res. 66: 451–456.
Reder, L. M., and Anderson, J. R. (1980). A comparison of texts and their summaries: Memorial consequences.J. Verb. Learn. Verb. Behav. 19: 121–134.
Rickards, J. P., and August, G. J. (1975). Generative underling strategies in prose recall.J. Educat. Psychol. 67: 860–865.
Schallert, D. L. (1976). Improving memory for prose: The relationship between depth of procession and context.J. Verb. Learn. Verb. Behav. 15: 621–632.
Spyridakis, J. H., and Standal, T. C. (1986). Headings, previews, logical connectives: Effects on reading comprehension.J. Tech. Writing Commun. 16: 343–354.
Spyridakis, J. H., and Standal, T. C. (1987). Signals in expository prose: Effects on reading.Read. Res. Quart. 22: 285–298.
Wallace, W. P. (1965). Review of the historical, empirical, and theoretical status of the von Restorff phenomenon.Psychol. Bull. 63z; 410–424.
Waller, R. H. W. (1979). Typographic access structures for educational texts. In Kolers, P. A. Wrolstad, M. E. and Bouma, H. (eds.),Processing of Visible Language, Vol. 1, Plenum Press, New York, pp. 175–188.
Waller, R. H. W. (1980). Graphic aspects of complex texts: Typography as macro-punctuation. In Kolers, P. A. Wrolstad, M. W. and Bouma, H. (eds.),Proceeding of Visible Language, Vol. 2, Plenum Press, New York, pp. 242–253.
Wilhite, S. C. (1986). The relationship of headings, questions, and locus of control to multiple-choice test performance.J. Read. Behav. 18: 23–39.
Yuill, N., and Joscelyne, T. (1988). Effect of organizational cues and strategies on good and poor comprehenders' story understanding.J. Educat. Psychol. 80: 152–158.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Lorch, R.F. Text-signaling devices and their effects on reading and memory processes. Educ Psychol Rev 1, 209–234 (1989). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01320135
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01320135