To better understand the form and recognizability of neonatal smiling, 32 newborns (14 girls; M = 25.6 hr) were videorecorded in the behavioral states of alertness, drowsiness, active sleep, and quiet sleep. Baby Facial Action Coding System coding of both lip corner raising (simple or non-Duchenne) and lip corner raising with cheek raising…

In this article, 41 models of covariation detection from 2 x 2 contingency tables were evaluated against past data in the literature and against data from new experiments. A new model was also included based on a limiting case of the normative phi-coefficient under an extreme rarity assumption, which has been shown to be an important factor in…

The authors identified factors affecting problem finding depending on degree of structure of problem situation--either ill or moderately structured. Fifth-grade students (N = 115) were randomly assigned to 2 groups: Group 1 (n = 60) accomplished the ill-structured task; Group 2 (n = 55) performed the moderately structured task. Results indicated…

Task instruction may be presented in many forms. However, training system designers are often forced to depend on intuition when choosing a presentation medium. Though past research has investigated the effectiveness of instructional media types, results have been mixed with no clear recommendations of which medium to use for instruction. An…

This study puts the Cognition Hypothesis (Robinson 2005) to the test with respect to its predictions of the effects of changes in task complexity ([plus or minus] few elements) and task condition ([plus or minus] monologic) on L2 performance. 44 learners of Dutch performed both a simple and a complex oral task in either a monologic or a dialogic…

Teenagers with nonverbal learning disabilities (NLD) have difficulty with fine-motor coordination, which may relate to the novelty of the task or the lack of "self-talk" to mediate action. In this study, we required two teenagers with NLD and two control group teenagers to touch the thumb of each hand firmly and accurately to the fingertips of the…

This study attempted to explore the influence of causal elements (ability, effort, task difficulty, and luck) as the strongest elements of locus of control predicting students' academic achievement satisfaction among foreign students. Based on locus of control scale invented by Rotter (1966), the findings obtained from 210 foreign students in…

The relation between Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) and reading comprehension at the end of first grade and second grade was examined in a sample of 1,518 first-grade students from a large urban school district. Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) analyses were used to determine optimal DIBELS cut scores for…

This study examined the development of integrated knowledge or automatic competence in adult SLA. Automatic competence was operationalized in terms of the participants' sensitivity to grammatical errors in a self-paced reading task. Their sensitivity was determined by observing whether there was a delay in reading ungrammatical sentences. Native…

Parkinson's disease (PD) patients and healthy controls were administered a flanker task that consisted of the presentation of colored targets and distractors. Participants were required to attend to the center target and identify its color. The stimulus displays were either congruent (i.e., the target and flankers were the same color) or…

For the first time, the annual conference of the European Association for Computer-Assisted Language Learning (EUROCALL) took place in Sweden. The conference took place at the Faculty of Education on historic ground on the old fortification walls of Carolus Dux from the 17th century right in the centre of the city. This year's host comprised the…

The teaching of human anatomy has had to respond to significant changes in medical curricula, and it behooves anatomists to devise alternative strategies to effectively facilitate learning of the discipline by medical students in an integrated, applied, relevant, and contextual framework. In many medical schools, the lack of cadaver dissection as…

This study tests the claim that word learning and retention in a second language are contingent upon a task's involvement load (i.e. the amount of need, search, and evaluation it imposes), as proposed by Laufer and Hulstijn (2001). Seventy-nine beginning learners of Spanish completed one of three vocabulary learning tasks that varied in the amount…

Background: Boys with early onset of conduct disorder (CD), most of whom also meet diagnostic criteria of a comorbid attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), tend to exhibit high levels of aggression throughout development. While a number of functional neuroimaging studies on emotional processing have been performed in antisocial adults,…

The merits of recasts have been widely debated and investigated in and out of the language classroom. This quasi-experimental study examines the impact of recasts in comparison to prompts and no corrective feedback on francophone learners' acquisition of English third person possessive determiners. Sixty-four students from three intact intensive…