The Effects of Imaginal and Verbal Strategies on Prose Comprehension by Adults

Adult subjects were given concrete and abstract textbook passages to study by using either an imaginai or verbal strategy. Two days later, they were given a multiple-choice test and a production test of comprehension. The verbal strategy produced better comprehension than the imaginai strategy; concrete passages were comprehended better than abstract passages, but only according to the production test; and strategy and concreteness did not interact. Differences between these results and results obtained in imagery research on word lists are discussed, and caution is advised before generalizing the word research to meaningful prose learning by adults