The viability of visual imagery as a prose-learning process was evaluated in two experiments with elementary school children. In the first experiment, it was found that when a passage was presented at a normal rate, the effect of imagery instructions on substance recall was relatively greater under listening than under reading conditions. This finding was replicated in the second experiment, in which it was also found that reported imagery generation was more frequent in listening than in reading conditions when a faster presentation rate was employed. Possible interpretations of the results with respect to a “compatibility” hypothesis are offered.
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