Learning to categorize perceptually similar stimuli can result in people becoming more sensitive to differences along perceptual dimensions that are relevant to category membership and/or less sensitive to equivalent differences along irrelevant perceptual dimensions. These effects of acquired distinctiveness and acquired equivalence may be caused…

The aim of this study was to investigate how pictorial representations with different semiotic characteristics affect additive word problem solving by kindergartners. The focus of the study is on three categories of additive problems (change problems, combine problems and equalize problems) and on representational pictures with different semiotic…

Mounting evidence suggests that monetary reward induces an incidentally learned selection bias toward highly rewarded features. It remains controversial, however, whether learning of reward regularities has similar effects on spatial attention. Here we ask whether spatial biases toward highly rewarded locations are learned implicitly, or are…

In this series of experiments, we tested the limits of young infants' word learning and generalization abilities in light of recent findings reporting sophisticated word learning abilities in the first year of life. Ten-month-old infants were trained with two word-object pairs and tested with either the same or different members of the…

Objects such as snowflakes, castles, and butterflies have become more than just words when explored as a 3D print. The founder's passion for braille led to the creation of the program See3D, which organizes the printing and distribution of 3D printed models for people who are blind. 3D prints such as DNA, cells, animals, constellations,…

The purpose of this study was to compare the efficiency of two prompt strategies (echoic versus echoic + picture) on establishing the intraverbal behavior (i.e., question answering) for three 4-year-old children with ASD in China. All three children had mand, tact, and echoic behavior in their repertoire, but had a limited intraverbal repertoire.…

While results from many past studies have implicated the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BNST) in mediating the expression of sustained negative affect, recent studies have highlighted a more complex role for BNST that includes aspects of fear learning in addition to defensive responding. As BNST is thought to encode ambiguous or…

These days, smartphones are popular commodities among students in high school and college. Students carry their devices all the time, so why not use such a popular electronic device to measure physical quantities such as "g" in physics labs? In this work, we report a "multiple tasking" method, a measurement technique that we…

Dyslexia is a common, lifelong, language and brain-based learning disability that can affect language processing and may lead to difficulties with reading, spelling, and writing. Symptoms of dyslexia include problems with decoding or single word reading, poor reading fluency, and poor spelling (IDA, 2018a). The use of Elkonin Sound Boxes (ESBs) is…

Adults struggle to learn non-native speech contrasts even after years of exposure. While laboratory-based training approaches yield learning, the optimal training conditions for maximizing speech learning in adulthood are currently unknown. Vagus nerve stimulation has been shown to prime adult sensory-perceptual systems towards plasticity in…

Participants gave recognition judgments for short lists of pictures of everyday objects. Pictures in a given list were an equal mixture of three types that varied according to the way they were used as targets and foils earlier in the same session. Under consistent-mapping (CM), targets and foils never switch roles; under varied-mapping (VM),…

"Stimulus over-selectivity" describes a phenomenon in which an individual responds only to a subset of the stimuli present in the environment and, thus, may restrict learning. This study aimed to develop understanding of the nature and role of over-selectivity in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) by analyzing the relationship of…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine whether long-term musical training enhances the ability to perceive and learn new auditory information. Listeners with extensive musical experience were expected to detect, learn, and retain novel words more effectively than participants without musical training. Advantages of musical training…

Emerging evidence suggests that the combination of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) and reading training may provide promising benefits for dyslexia; however, the clinical effects and the role of individual differences in tDCS outcomes for dyslexia remain unclear. To this end, the present study investigated the effects of tDCS on…

Naming semantically related images results in progressively slower responses as more images are named. There is considerable documentation in adults of this phenomenon, known as cumulative semantic interference. Few studies have focused on this phenomenon in children. The present research investigated cumulative semantic interference effects in…