| One specific attention encoding process that has been shown to affect learning positively is the selective attention strategy (SAS) but only in response to certain situational variables. To date, research has found that task variables, such as objectives, questions, and assigned perspectives, consistently induce readers to engage the SAS in a manner suggesting that learning is a direct result of attention. Conversely, reader variables of interest and prior knowledge do not seem to induce the same kind of attention processes in readers. The effect of text variables on readers' attention processes remains largely unexplored. Researchers have speculated that headings may influence readers' attention allocation by signaling to readers the information which is most salient to the purposes of the text (heading relevant information), and thereby influencing readers to pay more attention to heading relevant information, as measured by reading time patterns and corresponding memory patterns, yet research concerned with how text headings affect learning has been conducted without considerations of the SAS.;The purpose of this study is to begin to explore the relations of text variables to the SAS. This study examined the effect of general and specific headings on readers' attention and learning of information relevant and irrelevant to text headings. Subjects read one of four versions of a text. Specific and general headings were inserted into the passage. Subjects' reading times of text segments relevant and irrelevant to text headings were gathered to test the effect text headings have on attention allocation. A free recall procedure was used to test students' memories for information relevant and irrelevant to text headings. Subjects' awareness and commitment to SAS processes were assessed by verbal report data. Results revealed that specific headings influenced readers' use of the SAS, whereas general headings did not. Hierarchical regression analyses found that subjects who were committed to the SAS used it such that attention at encoding was causally related to increased recall. Uncommitted SAS users did not exhibit the same causal pattern. |
