In a study of ninety college seniors, measures of exposure to print predicted individual differences in vocabulary and cultural literacy after differences in general ability (SAT scores) had been statistically controlled, but did not predict differences in grade point average or knowledge of the field of major (psychology). Measures of exposure to nonprint media (television and films) predicted variance in cultural literacy, but not in vocabulary, after cognitive ability had been controlled. The data challenge the view that knowledge acquisition is determined only by the efficiency of cognitive components that encode and store information. Instead, the results indicate that differences in exposure to information are a significant independent contributor to differences in knowledge across individuals. The investigation further demonstrated the convergent validity of two briefly administered indicators of individual differences in exposure to print.
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