Researchers claim that pedagogical agents engender opportunities for social learning in digital environments. Prior literature, however, has not thoroughly examined the discourse between agents and learners. To address this gap, we analyzed a data corpus of interactions between agents and learners using open coding methods. Analysis revealed that:…

The Authors examined classifier production during narrative retells by 10 deaf and hard of hearing students in grades 2-4 at a day school for the deaf following a 6-week intervention of repeated viewings of stories in American Sign Language (ASL) paired with scripted teacher mediation. Classifier production, documented through a…

Transportation access is a major contributor to independence, productivity, and societal inclusion for individuals with intellectual and development disabilities (IDD). This study examined the effects of pedestrian navigation training using picture prompts displayed through a video iPod on travel route completion with 4 adults and IDD. Results…

College students ("n" = 846) enrolled in a general education course were randomly assigned to either an arousal (experimental) or no-arousal (control) group. The experimental group was exposed to a topic-relevant, 90-second external stimulus (a technique used to elevate arousal and focus attention). The control group listened to the…

Background: After 14 years of civil war and two rounds of democratic elections, Liberia is working to reduce child abuse and exploitation. Young children's perceptions on protection and risk are rarely elicited to inform program planning and intervention. Objective: The aim of the present study was to explore young children's perceptions of child…

Background: The present study was designed to examine the cortical processes that mediate cognitive regulation in response to emotion-eliciting stimuli in anxious children. Methods: Electroencephalographic (EEG) activity was recorded from clinically anxious children ("n" = 29) and typically developing children ("n" = 34).…

Background: Offspring of depressed parents are at greatly increased risk for mood disorders. Among potential mechanisms of risk, recent studies have focused on information processing anomalies, such as attention and memory biases, in the offspring of depressed parents. In this study we examined another information processing domain, perceptual…

We study the misconceptions about colour that most people hold, determining the general phenomenological laws that govern them. Concept mapping was used to combat the misconceptions which were found in the application of a test specifically designed to determine these misconceptions, while avoiding the possible misleading inductions that could…

The new developments in syntactic theory under Minimalism reconsiders the relation between the language faculty and general cognitive systems whereby language acquisition is accomplished by the interaction of Chomsky (2005)'s three factors: (F1) a minimally specified UG (Genetic endowment); (F2) Primary Linguistic Data (PLD), i.e., input; and (F3)…

Learning Chinese characters is a difficult task for adult English native speakers due to the significant differences between the Chinese and English writing system. The visuospatial properties of Chinese characters have inspired the development of instructional methods using both verbal and visual information based on the Dual Coding Theory. This…

Although echoic prompts may be effective for teaching intraverbal behavior to children with autism, the performance of some children may become dependent on such prompts (i.e., the prompts cannot be eliminated). Recent research suggests that visual rather than echoic prompts may be used to teach children with autism a variety of skills and may…

When presented with alternating low and high tones, listeners are more likely to perceive 2 separate streams of tones ("streaming") than a single coherent stream when the frequency separation ([delta]f) between tones is greater and the number of tone presentations is greater ("buildup"). However, the same large-[delta]f sequence reduces streaming…

Previous studies have shown that the right hemisphere processes the visual details of objects and the emotionality of information. These two roles of the right hemisphere have not been examined concurrently. In the present study, the authors examined whether right hemisphere processing would lead to particularly good memory for the visual details…

While visual attention can be attracted by task-irrelevant stimuli, questions remain regarding how many irrelevant items can be processed simultaneously and whether capacity limits are equivalent for all types of stimuli. To explore these issues, participants were required to classify verbal stimuli that were flanked by either one or two…

Purpose: To investigate the effects of hearing loss on auditory stream segregation of broadband inharmonic sounds. Method: Auditory stream segregation by listeners with normal and impaired hearing was measured for 6-component inharmonic sounds ("A" and "B") using objective and subjective methods. Components in the A stimuli ranged between 1000 and…