While most research on scalar implicature has focused on the lexical scale "some" vs "all," here we investigated an understudied scale formed by two syntactic constructions: categorizations (e.g., "Wilma is a nurse") and comparisons ("Wilma is like a nurse"). An experimental study by Rubio-Fernandez et al.…

Children's drawings of common object categories become dramatically more recognizable across childhood. What are the major factors that drive developmental changes in children's drawings? To what degree are children's drawings a product of their changing internal category representations versus limited by their visuomotor abilities or their…

Considerable research effort has been devoted to investigating semantic priming effects, particularly, the locus of those effects. Semantically related primes might activate their target's lexical representation (through automatic spreading activation at short stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs), or through generation of words expected to follow…

This study investigated the constructs underlying second language (L2) word association (WA) with regard to three dimensions of lexical competence--size, organization, and accessibility--and the lexical performance of speech. One-hundred and thirteen Japanese learners of English completed a computer-delivered oral WA task along with three…

This study examines the role of cross-linguistic transfer versus general processing strategy in two groups of heritage speakers (n = 28 per group) with the same heritage language -- Russian -- and typologically different dominant languages: English and Estonian. A group of homeland Russian speakers (n = 36) is tested to provide baseline…

The main purpose of the present study is to propose a framework for implementing group dynamic assessment (DA) using students' smartphones for improving and assessing EFL learners' ability to produce well-formed and appropriate requests. This study focuses on five learner reciprocity moves during DA interactions to get deeper insights into the…

The cross-categorical use of nouns and verbs poses a challenging problem to young language learners because they are known to be less willing to accept that a single form of a word be used for more than one linguistic purpose (e.g., one-form/one-function principle). The present study investigated whether children under 3 years of age are able to…

In experiments with univalent target stimuli, task-switching costs can be eliminated if participants are unaware of the task rules and apply cue-target-response associations. However, in experiments with bivalent target stimuli, participants show task-switching costs. Participants may exhibit switch costs even when no task rules are provided in…

In a variety of domains, adults who are given input that is only partially consistent do not discard the inconsistent portion (regularize) but rather maintain the probability of consistent and inconsistent portions in their behavior (probability match). This research investigates the possibility that adults probability match, at least in part,…

This mixed-methods study investigates writers' task representation and the factors affecting it in test-like and non-test-like conditions. Five advanced-level L2 writers wrote two argumentative essays each, one in test-like conditions and the other in non-test-like conditions where the participants were allowed to use all the time and online…

The aim of this experimental study is to examine the development of gender assignment and gender agreement in bilingual Albanian-Greek and English-Greek children as well as the exploitation of gender cues on the noun ending in real and pseudo-nouns. Four gender tasks were designed, two targeting gender assignment (determiner + noun production) and…

Humans are characterized by an especially highly developed ability to use instructions to prepare toward upcoming events; yet, it is unclear just how powerful instructions can be. Although prior work provides evidence that instructions can be sufficiently powerful to proactively program working memory to execute stimulus-response (S-R)…

Highly abstract predicates (e.g. "think") present a number of difficulties for language learners (Gleitman et al., 2005). A partial solution to learning these verbs is that learners exploit regularities in the syntactic frames in which these verbs occur. While agreeing with this general approach to learning verbs, we caution that this…

In the task switch paradigm, a switch of task is typically accompanied by a change in task cue. It has been proposed that the performance deficit usually observed when switching tasks is actually the result of changing cues. To test this possibility, we used a 2:2 cue-task mapping in which each cue indicated 2 different tasks. With advance…

The serial and spatially extended nature of many real-world visual tasks suggests the need for control over the content of visual working memory (VWM). We examined the management of VWM in a task that required participants to prioritize individual objects for retention during scene viewing. There were 5 principal findings: (a) Strategic retention…