In this study, the effects of second language (i.e., L2) proficiency and age of second language acquisition are assessed. Three types of bilinguals are compared: Early L2 learners, Late highly proficient L2 learners, and Late less proficient L2 learners. A lexical decision priming paradigm is used in which the critical trials consist of first…

This research describes and analyses the type of verbal discourse and interactions among the children in a group-solving situation. Two groups of five children ages 6, 7 and 8, from two different cultures, were observed: one at an English-speaking summer camp in Beirut, Lebanon, and another at a parallel site, a neighbourhood group in Kentucky, in…

Drawing in aphasia therapy has been used predominately as a substitution for speech or to augment communication when other modalities are non-functional. The value of drawing as a route for facilitating verbal expression has not been a focus of prior research. We compared the usefulness of drawing and writing as compensatory strategies for…

This study investigates advanced Japanese language learners' abilities to infer unknown "kanji" (Chinese character )words while reading authentic Japanese texts. Data obtained from 42 English L1 students indicate that, first, although they can guess the meanings of unknown "kanji" words in context, they frequently make erroneous guesses or fail to…

Studies have suggested attention-free semantic processing of natural scenes in which concurrent tasks leave category detection unimpaired (e.g., F. Li, R. VanRullen, C. Koch, & P. Perona, 2002). Could this ability reflect detection of disjunctive feature sets rather than high-level binding? Participants detected an animal target in a rapid serial…

This article reviews recent research on perception of tangible pictures in sighted and blind people. Haptic picture naming accuracy is dependent upon familiarity and access to semantic memory, just as in visual recognition. Performance is high when haptic picture recognition tasks do not depend upon semantic memory. Viewpoint matters for the ease…

Recent work examining and expanding traditional accounts of a virtue has been used as the foundation for a virtue-based approach to epistemology. A similar approach to aesthetics yields some striking features, which coincide with contemporary philosophical concerns about the nature and definition of art. Those writing on virtue-based epistemology…

This study investigated subtypes of developmental dyslexia in Chinese by assessing three cases of Chinese dyslexic children. A battery of screening measures, a character naming and meaning task, and metalinguistic awareness tasks were administered to each child. One of the three children demonstrated characteristics of developmental surface…

Montrul's study is an important contribution to a recently emerged research approach to the study of bilingualism and languages in contact, characterized by its sound theoretical basis and its reliance on data from different--and traditionally non-integrated--domains of language development: bilingual first language acquisition (Muller and Hulk,…

In an important theoretical contribution to our understanding of language contact, Toribio elaborates on the familiar generalization, best known from the work of Silva-Corvalan, that contact varieties resemble monolingual lects of the same language in overall grammar, but differ with regard to (a) the selection of structures and (b) the…

All languages rely to some extent on word order to signal relational information. Why? We address this question by exploring communicative and cognitive factors that could lead to a reliance on word order. In Study 1, adults were asked to describe scenes to another using their hands and not their mouths. The question was whether this home-made…

Purpose: Owing to its complexity, sustainable development cannot be simply integrated as a supplementary course within the engineers' curricula. The first point of this paper aims to focalise on how to reflect pedagogically. After dealing with these questions, a tool that can evaluate the student's understanding of sustainable development concepts…

Speech directed towards young children ("motherese") is subject to consistent systematic modifications. Recent research suggests that gesture directed towards young children is similarly modified (gesturese). It has been suggested that gesturese supports speech, therefore scaffolding communicative development (the facilitative…

The present study investigated the influence of sex, handedness, level in second language (L2) and Faculty choice on the performance of phonological, syntactical and semantic tasks in L2. Level in L2 and sex were the most affecting factors. Subjects who achieved higher scores on L2 tasks had strong second language aptitude skills since they were…

Arguments about the existence of language-specific neural systems and specifically about the independence of syntactic and semantic processing have focused on the event-related brain measures (ERPs) as tool to monitoring moment-by-moment the cognitive processes underlaid. In the present experiments, the available evidence indicates that the ERP…