A basic function of cognition is to detect regularities in sensory input to facilitate the prediction and recognition of future events. It has been proposed that these implicit expectations arise from an internal predictive coding model, based on knowledge acquired through processes such as statistical learning, but it is unclear how different…

Large-scale audiovisual data that measure group learning are time consuming to collect and analyze. As an initial step towards scaling qualitative classroom observation, we qualitatively coded classroom video using an established coding scheme with and without its audio cues. We find that interrater reliability is as high when using visual data…

One of the most fundamental aspects of learning a language is determining the mappings between words and referents. An often-overlooked complication is that infants interact with multiple individuals who may not produce words in the same way. In the present study, we explored whether 10- to 12-month-olds can use talker-specific knowledge to infer…

Although most studies of language learning take place in quiet laboratory settings, everyday language learning occurs under noisy conditions. The current research investigated the effects of background speech on word learning. Both younger (22- to 24-month-olds; n = 40) and older (28- to 30-month-olds; n = 40) toddlers successfully learned novel…

When children hear a novel word in a context presenting a novel object and a familiar one, they usually assume that the novel word refers to the novel object. In a series of experiments, we tested whether this behavior would be found when 2-year-olds interpreted novel words that differed phonologically from familiar words in only 1 sound, either a…

In 2012, and 2014 Libraries and Learning Services from the University of Auckland created two online courses to introduce students to the concept of academic integrity and its associated values and expectations. The challenge was to introduce the somewhat dry subject matter to a diverse group of students in an engaging way and to avoid large…

The present study sets out to explore the distinctive roles played by two working memory (WM) components in various aspects of L2 task-based speech planning and performance. A group of 40 post-intermediate proficiency level Chinese EFL learners took part in the empirical study. Following the tenets and basic principles of the…

Natural language contains disfluencies and errors. Do listeners simply discard information that was clearly produced in error, or can erroneous material persist to affect subsequent processing? Two experiments explored this question using a structural priming paradigm. Speakers described dative-eliciting pictures after hearing prime sentences that…

Recent studies indicate the need to investigate the sources of toddlers' understanding of another person's pretense. The present study is a cultural and longitudinal extension of the work of Lillard and Witherington (2004), who claimed that mothers modify their behaviors during pretense and that the some of these behavior modifications help their…

Behaviors characteristic of attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) often interfere with students' and their classmates' learning, and interventions targeting these behaviors may be particularly important in schools. This article reviews studies in which researchers manipulated environmental stimulation during task presentation…

Deficits in identification and discrimination of sounds with short inter-stimulus intervals or short formant transitions in children with specific language impairment (SLI) have been taken to reflect an underlying temporal auditory processing deficit. Using the sustained frequency following response (FFR) and the onset auditory brainstem responses…

Two classrooms of diverse 5-year-old children were set the task of exploring ways of realising music invention through the semiotic import of composing resources. In both a rural and an inner-urban setting in Australia, children demonstrated syncretism in bilingual practices in communication. Visual multimodal analysis demonstrated how children…

Experience-dependent enhancement of neural encoding of pitch in the auditory brainstem has been observed for only specific portions of native pitch contours exhibiting high rates of pitch acceleration, irrespective of speech or nonspeech contexts. This experiment allows us to determine whether this language-dependent advantage transfers to…

Mandarin Chinese and many other tonal languages use tones that are defined as specific pitch patterns to distinguish syllables otherwise ambiguous. It had been shown that tones carry at least as much information as vowels in Mandarin Chinese [Surendran et al., 2005]. Surprisingly, though, many speech recognition systems for Mandarin Chinese have…

The aim of this study was to analyze children's graphical notations as external representations of their experiencing when listening to simple sonic stimuli and complex musical fragments. More specifically, we assessed the impact of four factors on children's notations: age, musical background, complexity of the fragment, and most salient…