The current study investigates whether informative, mutually redundant audiovisual cues support better performance in a category learning paradigm. Research suggests that, under some conditions, redundant multisensory cues supports better learning, when compared with unisensory cues. This was examined systematically across two experiments. In…

Extracting the statistical regularities present in the environment is a central learning mechanism in infancy. For instance, infants are able to learn the associations between simultaneously or successively presented visual objects (Fiser & Aslin, 2002; Kirkham, Slemmer & Johnson, 2002). The present study extends these results by…

Learning the words of a language is crucial to successful language learning. The study reported in this article aimed to investigate the potential for simple images to be used in foreign language vocabulary learning. English words presented in either first language form or simple pictorial form were used as cues for recall in classroom and…

Linguistic and non-linguistic pattern learning have been studied separately, but we argue for a comparative approach. Analogous inductive problems arise in phonological and visual pattern learning. Evidence from three experiments shows that human learners can solve them in analogous ways, and that human performance in both cases can be captured by…

Individuals regularly experience fluctuations in the ability to perform cognitive operations. Although previous research has focused on predicting cognitive flexibility from persistent individual traits, as well as from spontaneous fluctuations in neural activity, the role of learning in shaping preparatory attentional control remains poorly…

Our visual brain is remarkable in extracting invariant properties from the noisy environment, guiding selection of where to look and what to identify. However, how the brain achieves this is still poorly understood. Here we explore interactions of local context and global structure in the long-term learning and retrieval of invariant display…

The aim of this study was to examine the combined influences of infants' attention and use of social cues in the prediction of their language outcomes. This longitudinal study measured infants' visual attention on a distractibility task (11 months), joint attention (14 months), and language outcomes (word-object association, 14 months; MBCDI…

The author examined the transfer of stimulus control from instructor assistance to verbal cues and pictorial cues. The intent was to determine whether it is easier to transfer stimulus control to one form of cue or the other. No studies have conducted such comparisons to date; however, literature exists to suggest that visual cues may be…

This paper examines the transferability of successful cueing approaches from text and static visualization research to animations. Theories of visual attention and learning as well as empirical evidence for the instructional effectiveness of attention cueing are reviewed and, based on Mayer's theory of multimedia learning, a framework was…

The purpose of this study was to evaluate rapid automatized naming skills (RAN) and immediate memory processes in 243 Chinese Mandarin-speaking elementary readers (ranging from Grade 1 to Grade 5). For RAN subtests, the mean naming time decreased monotonically with grade level in good and average readers, and a similar trajectory was found in poor…

In a permanently changing environment, it is by no means an easy task to distinguish potentially important events from negligible ones. Yet, to survive, every animal has to continuously face that challenge. How does the brain accomplish this feat? Building on previous work in "Drosophila melanogaster" visual learning, we have developed an…

Investigates the cues beginning readers use in recognizing verbal stimuli. (Author/DEP)

Beginning with a survey of work previously done on the subject, this study attempts to learn more about how, and to what extent, children benefit from pictorial illustrations, with a view to improving instructional materials. Three areas were investigated with experiments using children from nursery schools and kindergarten to sixth grade. The…

We investigated the effect of contextual cuing (M. M. Chun & Y. Jiang, 1998) within the preview paradigm (D. G. Watson & G. W. Humphreys, 1997). Contextual cuing was shown with a 10-item letter search but not with more crowded 20-item displays. However, contextual learning did occur in a preview procedure in which 10 preview items were followed by…

In order to investigate the relative effectiveness of specific media attributes on student performance on criterion tests, a comparison was made of the effectiveness of two levels of stimulus explicitness in visuals in facilitating student achievement on criterion tests of knowledge, comprehension, and total understanding. Subjects were 171…