The influence of motor knowledge on speech perception is well established, but the functional role of the motor system is still poorly understood. The present study explores the hypothesis that speech production abilities may help infants discover phonetic categories in the speech stream, in spite of coarticulation effects. To this aim, we…

In psychological science, mindfulness and compassion are thought to promote physical health, mental well-being and even virtuous character. Yet in Buddhist philosophy, mindfulness and compassion can cause suffering when the two are not balanced. One key mechanism of mindfulness is 'dereification,' which amounts to experiencing one's thoughts just…

According to a growing body of research, fostering a metacognitive awareness of the writing process is integral to the development of strong writers. Writing scholars (e.g., Driscoll & Wells, 2012; Yancey, Robertson, & Taczac, 2014; Gorzelsky, Driscoll, Pazcek, Jones, & Hayes, 2017) suggest that developing this awareness can improve…

A word's predictability, as measured by its cloze probability, has a robust influence on the time a reader's eyes spend on the word, with more predictable words receiving shorter fixations. However, several previous studies using the boundary paradigm have found no apparent effect of predictability on early reading time measures when the reader…

Selective attention is fundamental for learning across many situations, yet it exhibits protracted development, with young children often failing to filter out distractors. In this research, we examine links between selective attention and working memory (WM) capacity across development. One possibility is that WM is resource-limited, with…

Research shows that children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) differ in their behavioral patterns of responding to sensory stimuli (i.e., sensory responsiveness) and in various other aspects of sensory functioning relative to typical peers. This study explored relations between measures of sensory responsiveness and multisensory speech…

This dissertation recommends research to investigate the effects inhibitory control and perceptual attention have on the cyber security decision-making process. Understanding the effects that inhibitory control and perceptual attention have on the security decision-making process will allow for better defenses to be developed against social…

Our visual experience is surprisingly rich: We do not only see low-level properties such as colors or contours; we also see events, or what is happening. Within linguistics, the examination of how we talk about events suggests that relatively abstract elements exist in the mind which pertain to the relational structure of events, including general…

Purpose: A growing body of research suggests that a deficit in speech perception abilities contributes to the development of speech sound disorder (SSD). However, little work has been done to characterize the neurophysiological processes indexing speech perception deficits in this population. The primary aim of this study was to compare the neural…

Purpose: Children with hearing loss (HL), including those with hearing aids (HAs) and cochlear implants (CIs), often have difficulties contrasting words like "beach" versus "peach" and "dog" versus "dock" due to challenges producing systematic voicing contrasts. Even when acoustic contrasts are present,…

Anticipatory coarticulation is an indispensable feature of speech dynamics contributing to spoken language fluency. Research has shown that children speak with greater degrees of vowel anticipatory coarticulation than adults -- that is, greater vocalic influence on previous segments. The present study examined how developmental differences in…

Purpose: Adults with mild-to-moderate age-related hearing loss typically exhibit issues with speech understanding, but their processing of syntactically complex sentences is not well understood. We test the hypothesis that listeners with hearing loss' difficulties with comprehension and processing of syntactically complex sentences are due to the…

Purpose: Sensitivity to sounds and atypical reactions to sensory input by individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have been reported in the literature. In response to this sensitivity, some individuals use ear protection devices (EPDs) such as noise-canceling headphones, earplugs, or earmuffs to attenuate the perceived unpleasant sounds.…

Introduction: This study analyzed 39 data collection tools used by teachers of students with visual impairments when completing functional vision assessments (FVAs). Methods: In 2017, teachers of students with visual impairments submitted data collection tools used in the FVA process. These tools were then compared with the 23 FVA components…

The solfege course, which is carried out in conservatories where western music is taught in Turkey, covers solfege, theory, dictation and ear training studies in terms of content. Solfege course, which contributes greatly to the development of basic music knowledge and skills of students, also forms the infrastructure of other practical courses.…