How does orthographic distinctiveness affect recall of structured (categorized) word lists? On one theory, enhanced item-specific information (e.g., more distinct encoding) in concert with robust relational information (e.g., categorical information) optimally supports free recall. This predicts that for categorically structured lists,…

In recognition memory, "recollection" is defined as retrieval of the context associated with an event, whereas "familiarity" is defined as retrieval based on item strength alone. Recent studies have shown that conventional recollection-based tasks, in which context details are manipulated for source memory assessment at test,…

Motion events in language describe the movement of an entity to another location along a path. In 2 eye-tracking experiments, we found that comprehension of motion events involves the online construction of a spatial mental model that integrates language with the visual world. In Experiment 1, participants listened to sentences describing the…

This paper investigates whether three-year-olds are able to process attributive adjectives (e.g., "soft pillow") as they hear them and to predict the noun ("pillow") on the basis of the adjective meaning ("soft"). This was investigated in an experiment by means of the Visual World Paradigm. The participants saw two…

Faces are processed holistically, so selective attention to 1 face part without any influence of the others often fails. In this study, 3 experiments investigated what type of facial information (shape or surface) underlies holistic face processing and whether generalization of holistic processing to nonexperienced faces requires extensive…

Similarity to known words has been found to influence novel word learning (cf. Storkel, et al., 2006; Bartolotti & Marian, 2014). The current study examines the influence of the orthographic and phonological typicality of novel written words on the acquisition of meaning and subsequent naming behavior for those items. The orthographic and…

Three experiments investigated the learning of simple associations in a color-word contingency task. Participants responded manually to the print colors of 3 words, with each word associated strongly to 1 of the 3 colors and weakly to the other 2 colors. Despite the words being irrelevant, response times to high-contingency stimuli and to…

Wordless picture book is an unique book that could help the young learner to get their literacy. The content of the wordless picture book must be communicated through the visual of the illustration. This research discusses a case study of how a kid of six years old produce his narrative through wordless picture book. The kid was allowed to see and…

Infants, children and adults are capable of extracting recurring patterns from their environment through statistical learning (SL), an implicit learning mechanism that is considered to have an important role in language acquisition. Research over the past 20 years has shown that SL is present from very early infancy and found in a variety of tasks…

Task-irrelevant speech impairs short-term serial recall appreciably. On the interference-by-process account, the processing of physical (i.e., precategorical) changes in speech yields order cues that conflict with the serial-ordering process deployed to perform the serial recall task. In this view, the postcategorical properties (e.g., phonology,…

Best practices research on plagiarism in the University classroom shows that modifying assignments and classroom environment can have a positive effect on lowering a student's desire to cheat. James Lang suggests four features of a learning environment that can be fostered to ameliorate a student's desire to cheat: mastery of the material for its…

Like many museums, the Missouri Historical Society wants to empower students to engage with history on their own terms. In our quest to create museum literate learners and push the student-centered field trip model to its maximum, we've internalized the crucial role of metacognition, or how we facilitate opportunities for students to think about…

Preparing young children for kindergarten is an important task. There are many skills that need to be learned. Simple everyday school and daily living tasks are kindergarten readiness skills that need to be taught. Many preschool students struggle to learn these skills unless taught directly. There are a sufficient number of interventions that…

This paper presents a comprehensive review and a specific example implementation of a minimally invasive technique that can be used to make quantitative measurements of a subject's Electro-Dermal Activity (EDA) in educational technology studies. The Q sensor is a low-cost wireless sensor that can be worn on the wrist to measure a subject's…

In controlled contexts, young children find it more difficult to learn novel words for actions than words for objects: Imai et al. found that English-speaking three-year-olds mistakenly choose a novel object as a referent for a novel verb about 42% of the time despite hearing the verb in a transitive sentence. The current two studies investigated…