Eye movements in reading are sensitive to foveal and parafoveal word features. Whereas the influence of orthographic or phonological parafoveal information on gaze control is undisputed, there has been no reliable evidence for early parafoveal extraction of semantic information in alphabetic script. Using a novel combination of the gaze-contingent…

As many studies have now demonstrated that morphological awareness contributes to students' literacy development, there is growing interest in the educational value of instruction in morphological awareness. This review was undertaken to integrate findings of studies that sought to determine whether such instruction contributed to improvement in…

When young adults carry out visual search, distractors that are semantically related, rather than unrelated, to targets can disrupt target selection (see [Belke et al., 2008] and [Moores et al., 2003]). This effect is apparent on the first eye movements in search, suggesting that attention is sometimes captured by related distractors. Here we…

Relatively little is known about the role of ambiguity in adult second-language learning. In this study, native English speakers learned Dutch-English translation pairs that either mapped in a one-to-one fashion (unambiguous items) in that a Dutch word uniquely corresponded to one English word, or mapped in a one-to-many fashion (ambiguous items),…

Readers apply their own standards of coherence while reading text. Readers with a low standard of coherence are thought to find a sparse and incomplete representation more coherent than readers who employ a higher standard. This article reports 3 experiments that examined standards of coherence imposed by skilled and less-skilled readers by having…

Communication, language and conceptual knowledge related to concrete objects may rely on the sensory-motor systems from which they emerge. How abstract concepts can emerge from these systems is however still unknown. Here we report a functional interaction between a specific meaningful finger movement, such as a finger grip closing, and a concept…

We investigated how auditory language processing is modified by a listener's previous experience with the specific activities mentioned in the speech. In particular, we asked whether neural responses related to language processing depend on one's experience with the action-based content of this language. Ice-hockey players and novices passively…

Word age-of-acquisition (AoA) affects reading. The mapping hypothesis predicts AoA effects when input--output mappings are arbitrary. In Spanish, the orthography-to-phonology mappings required for word naming are consistent; therefore, no AoA effects are expected. Nevertheless, AoA effects have been found, motivating the present investigation of…

The authors completed a narrative review of studies of mathematics interventions from 1996 to 2010 for helping elementary school students with difficulties in mathematics solve word problems. Key instructional components supported by research are teaching cognitive and metacognitive skills; schema-based instruction focusing on semantic analysis,…

A variety of research has pointed to the interdependent linkage among vocabulary knowledge, reading comprehension, and level of literacy. With this point in mind, the present study addressed the question of whether student vocabulary acquisition could be accelerated by using a multi-part, semantic word-family-oriented learning strategy to…

Studies in interlanguage pragmatics have shown that L2 learners' proficiency has an influence on the occurrences of L1 pragmatic transfer. However, questions remain whether the relationship between L1 pragmatic transfer and L2 proficiency is positive or negative. This paper is designed to study L1 pragmatic transfer in requests made by Chinese…

The use of specific speech acts have been found to vary with culture, thus to perform a speech act successfully in a second language requires not only linguistic competence but also pragmatic competence of the L2 community. Though previous studies have shown dissimilarities in invitational conversations and general refusal strategies (c.f.…

Language operates according to rules. Rules mean prediction. The application of these language rules to persuasive campaigns through linguistic technology can result in major gains in advertising, political and marketing outcomes. For qualitative researchers in communications, marketing and messaging, one area of persuasive language technology can…

The possible advantage of bilingual children over monolinguals in analyzing word meanings from verbal context was examined. The subjects were 40 third-grade children (20 bilingual and 20 monolingual) recruited from independent schools in the USA. The two groups of participants were compared on their performance on a standardized test of receptive…

Signal detection is a challenging task for regulatory and intelligence agencies. Subject matter experts in those agencies analyze documents, generally containing narrative text in a time bound manner for signals by identification, evaluation and confirmation, leading to follow-up action e.g., recalling a defective product or public advisory for…