How toddlers' attention is distributed in the visual field during a magic trick was examined using three expectation conditions. Results showed that 2.5-year-old children assigned to the condition with major task-relevant information (i.e., a verbal cue to attend to one of the visual targets) (i) outperformed those who were assigned to the…

Through the process of "reconsolidation," reminders can temporarily destabilize memories and render them vulnerable to change. Recent rodent research has proposed that prediction error, or the element of surprise, is a key component of this process; yet, this hypothesis has never before been extended to complex episodic memories in…

Recent research on video lectures has indicated that the instructor's pointing gestures facilitate learning performance. This study examined whether the instructor's pointing gestures were superior to nonhuman cues in enhancing video lectures learning, and second, if there was a positive effect, what the underlying mechanisms of the effect might…

This study aimed to test beliefs about cues to deception and the ability to detect lies in a group of teachers with different teaching experience. Their results were compared with the results of non-teachers matched in age and with the results of educational studies and psychology students. Both the beliefs of deception indicators and overall…

What factors contribute to children's tendency to view individuals as having different traits and abilities? The present research tested whether young children are influenced by adults' nonverbal behaviors when making inferences about peers. In Study 1, participants (aged 5-6 years) viewed multiple videos of interactions between a…

Background and purpose: Attentional focus cues have been shown to impact motor performance of adults and children. Specifically, an external focus of attention results in improved motor learning and performance as compared to adopting an internal focus of attention. The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of an internal and external…

Students acquiring American Sign Language (ASL) as a second language (L2) struggle with fingerspelling comprehension more than skilled signers. These L2 learners might be attempting to perceive and comprehend fingerspelling in a way that is different from native signers, which could negatively impact their ability to comprehend fingerspelling.…

Autonomy support in classrooms is believed to coordinate students' inner motivational resources in ways that enhance student engagement (e.g., Jang, Kim, & Reeve, 2012). Yet, to our knowledge, no study has investigated student-generated interpretations of the motivational significance of their teachers' autonomy-supportive practices.…

Research suggests that learners will likely spend a substantial amount of time looking at the model's face when it is visible in a video-based modeling example. Consequently, in this study we hypothesized that learners might not attend timely to the task areas the model is referring to, unless their attention is guided to such areas by the model's…

Mentoring is a trusting, developmental supervisory relationship whose success largely depends on participants' interpersonal abilities. Feedback interventions with mentees commonly present interactional challenges to maintaining that relationship, yet are integral to any teaching-learning context. In this study we examined whether and how two key,…

Children with autism often show a lack of the interactive social skills that would allow them to engage with others successfully. They therefore frequently need training to aid them in successful social interaction. Video modeling is a widely used instructional technique that has been applied to teach children with developmental disabilities such…

Problem solving is an important employability skill and considered valuable both in educational settings (Agran & Alper, 2000) and the workplace (Ju, Zhang, & Pacha, 2012). However, limited research exists instructing students with autism to engage in problem solving skills (e.g., Bernard-Opitz, Sriram, & Nakhoda-Sapuan, 2001). The…

The criteria by which raters judge pragmatic appropriateness of language learners' speech acts are underexamined, especially when raters evaluate extended discourse. To shed more light on this process, the present study investigated what factors are salient to raters when scoring pragmatic appropriateness of extended request sequences, and which…

Intensive Speech and Language Therapy (SLT) training courses for Early Childhood Educators (ECEs) can have a positive effect on their use of interaction strategies that support children's communication skills. The impact of brief SLT training courses is not yet clearly understood. The aims of these two studies were to assess the impact of a brief…

When watching others describe events, does information from their speech and gestures affect our memory representations for the gist and surface form of the described events? Does our reliance on these memory representations change over time? Forty participants watched videos of stories narrated by an actor. Each story included three target events…