In psychological assessment, there is a tension between oral and written language. This tension is rarely troubled or even noted in clinical practice. For report writing purposes, psychologists routinely transform oral, socially embedded material into written texts. In this paper, I highlight three points in the psychological assessment process…

To learn to read, the brain must repurpose neural systems for oral language and visual processing to mediate written language. We begin with a description of computational models for how alphabetic written language is processed. Next, we explain the roles of a dorsal sublexical system in the brain that relates print and speech, a ventral lexical…

In this article, writing is reconceptualized as primarily a metacognitive process that can be modeled using contemporary metacognitive theory. This reconceptualization of writing was described in an earlier publication, but in the current article the author provides an update on this metacognitive model of writing with 3 purposes in mind. First,…

In this paper it is proposed that the prefrontal lobe participates in two closely related but different executive function abilities: (1) "metacognitive executive functions": problem solving, planning, concept formation, strategy development and implementation, controlling attention, working memory, and the like; that is, executive functions as…

Research on how the brain implements reading has produced results of remarkable consistency, especially on the functional anatomy of single word reading. We examine the general features of this emerging knowledge and draw attention to the extent to which it converges with results from other methods of reading science in several areas: reading…

One model of discourse production attempts to explicate deeper-level decisions that writers make, to explain why some writing activities may be more successful than others, and to indicate likely profitable modes of instruction. The model views discourse production as a series of three interactive decision levels in which (1)…

Discusses computer-mediated communication (CMC) and computer-assisted language learning and explains how second language learners become communicatively fluent through a text-based CMC setting. Highlights include how asynchronous and synchronous CMC can support learners' cognitive processes; and models for combining text-based CMC with spoken…

Investigates the effect of oral and electronic media on interaction patterns by learners of Japanese as a second language. The framework for the analysis of learner is speech act theory, which provides a richly developed set of descriptive categories by which to examine interactional processes. (Author/JL)