EFFECTS OF PICTURE SIZE AND PLACEMENT ON MEMORY FOR WRITTEN WORDS

A study investigating the effects of varying size and position of line drawings in combination with written words was conducted with kinderg arten students. Subjects were shown written words under four condition s that represented various size and position relationships between lin e drawings and orthography. After 4 consecutive days of exposure in an incidental learning task, both identification and recognition measure s were obtained. Results showed superior performance for word-only and enhanced-word conditions, over those in which small and large line dr awings were paired with written words, supporting similar research fin dings conducted with reading tasks. Implications are drawn for applica tion to individuals with little or no functional speech who use graphi c symbols for expressive communication.