The current study employed a neuro-imaging technique, Event-Related Potentials (ERP), to investigate real-time processing of sentences containing filler-gap dependencies by late-learning speakers of English as a second language (L2) with a Chinese native language background. An individual differences approach was also taken to examine the role of…

A novel explanation of belief bias in relational reasoning is presented based on the role of working memory and retrieval in deductive reasoning, and the influence of prior knowledge on this process. It is proposed that belief bias is caused by the believability of a conclusion in working memory which influences its activation level, determining…

The electroencephalogram (EEG) was used to investigate variation in mental rotation (MR) strategies between males and females and different college majors. Beta activation was acquired from 40 participants (10 males and 10 females in physical science; 10 males and 10 females in social science) when performing the Vandenberg and Kuse (1978) mental…

Depressive brooding--a passive ruminative focus on one's problems, negative mood and their consequences--is a thinking style that places individuals at a greater risk to develop future psychopathology. In this study, we investigated whether inter-individual differences in depressive brooding are related to neural differences underlying the…

This thesis investigates the syntactic status of adjectives in Spanish through a crossdisciplinary perspective, incorporating methodologies from both theoretical linguistics and neurolinguistics, specifically, event-related potentials (ERPs). It presents conflicting theories about the syntax of adjectives and explores the ways that the processing…

This paper investigates the effects of Content and Language Integrated Learning, CLIL for short, on both the attainment of the subject matter, mathematics in our case, hence the content aspect of CLIL. The second axes of research focuses on the effect of CLIL on the learners' proficiency vis-à-vis the language of instruction, epitomized here by…

In the present study, the authors focused on the use of electroencephalography (EEG) data about cognitive workload and sustained attention to predict math problem solving outcomes. EEG data were recorded as students solved a series of easy and difficult math problems. Sequences of attention and cognitive workload estimates derived from the EEG…

Behavioral inhibition is a temperament characterized in infancy and early childhood by a tendency to withdraw from novel or unfamiliar stimuli. Children exhibiting this disposition, relative to children with other dispositions, are more socially reticent, less likely to initiate interaction with peers, and more likely to develop anxiety over time.…

Recent studies have demonstrated that central cues, such as eyes and arrows, reflexively trigger attentional shifts. However, it is not clear whether the attentional mechanisms induced by these two cues are similar or rather differ in some important way. We investigated hemispheric lateralization of the orienting effects induced by the two cue…

The visual front-end of reading is most often associated with orthographic processing. The left ventral occipito-temporal cortex seems to be preferentially tuned for letter string and word processing. In contrast, little is known of the mechanisms responsible for pre-orthographic processing: the processing of character strings regardless of…

To determine the areas involved in reorganization of language to the right hemisphere after early left hemisphere injury, we compared fMRI activation patterns during four production and comprehension tasks in post-surgical epilepsy patients with either left (LH) or right hemisphere (RH) speech dominance (determined by Wada testing) and healthy…

Some situations require one to quickly stop an initiated response. Recent evidence suggests that rapid stopping engages a mechanism that has diffuse effects on the motor system. For example, stopping the hand dampens the excitability of the task-irrelevant leg. However, it is unclear whether this "global suppression" could apply across wider motor…

Conceptual metaphor theory suggests that knowledge is structured around metaphorical mappings derived from physical experience. Segregated processing of object properties in sensory cortex allows testing of the hypothesis that metaphor processing recruits activity in domain-specific sensory cortex. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging…

This functional MRI study investigated the involvement of the left inferior parietal cortex (IPC) in spoken language production (Speech). Its role has been apparent in some studies but not others, and is not convincingly supported by clinical studies as they rarely include cases with lesions confined to the parietal lobe. We compared Speech with…

The Parallel Distributed Processing (PDP) framework has significant potential for producing models of cognitive tasks that approximate how the brain performs the same tasks. To date, however, there has been relatively little contact between PDP modeling and data from cognitive neuroscience. In an attempt to advance the relationship between…