To test general and specific processes of symbol learning, 4- and 5-year-old children learned three kinds of abstract associates for novel objects: words, facts, and pictograms. To test fast mapping (i.e., one-trial learning) and subsequent learning, comprehension was tested after each of four exposures. Production was also tested, as was…

Romanized transliteration is widely used in internet communication and global commerce, yet we know little about its behavioural and neural processing. Here, we show that Romanized text imposes a significant neurocognitive load. Readers faced greater difficulty in identifying concrete words written in Romanized transliteration (Romanagari)…