Previous research has shown that both dictation and speech-to-text (STT) software can increase the quality of writing for native English speakers. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of these modalities on the written composition and cognitive load of elementary school English language learners (ELLs). In a within-subjects…

Purpose: Infant-directed speech (IDS) facilitates language learning in infants with normal hearing, compared to adult-directed speech (ADS). It is well established that infants with normal hearing prefer to listen to IDS over ADS. The purpose of this study was to determine whether infants with hearing impairment (HI), like their NH peers, show a…

Training that uses exaggerated versions of a stimulus discrimination (fading) has sometimes been found to enhance category learning, mostly in studies involving animals and impaired populations. However, little is known about whether and when fading facilitates learning for typical individuals. This issue was explored in 7 experiments. In…

Adult humans demonstrate differential processing of stimuli that were recurrent threats to safety and survival throughout evolutionary history. Recent studies suggest that differential processing of evolutionarily ancient threats occurs in human infants, leading to the proposal of an inborn mechanism for rapid identification of, and response to,…

Selective attention in the presence of distraction is a key aspect of healthy cognition. The underlying neurobiological processes, have not, however, been functionally well characterized. In the present study, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to determine how ecologically relevant distracting noise affects cortical activity in 27…

Purpose: Common wisdom suggests that listening in noise poses disproportionately greater difficulty for listeners with cochlear implants (CIs) than for peers with normal hearing (NH). The purpose of this study was to examine phonological, language, and cognitive skills that might help explain speech-in-noise abilities for children with CIs.…

Training can improve perceptual sensitivities. We examined whether the temporal dynamics and the incidental versus intentional nature of training are important. Within the context of a birdsong rate discrimination task, we examined whether the sequencing of pretesting exposure to the stimuli mattered. Easy-to-hard (progressive) sequencing of…

The purposes of this quantitative descriptive and correlational study were to describe the learning preferences of Georgia Young Farmer participants and determine if significant differences exists between scores relating to visual, auditory and kinesthetic learning styles. A pilot study was used to correct identifiable problems with the survey…

Accurately timing acoustic events in dynamic scenes is fundamental to scene analysis. To detect events in busy scenes, listeners must often identify a change in the "pattern" of ongoing fluctuation, resulting in many ubiquitous events being detected later than when they occurred. This raises the question of how delayed detection time affects the…

The authors assessed 4,865 middle and high school students for the ability to recognize and understand written and spoken morphologically simple words, morphologically complex words, and the syntactic structure of sentences and for the ability to answer questions about facts presented in a written passage and to make inferences based on those…

This article describes an innovation in the teaching and learning of vocabulary in English as a Foreign Language classes. Whereas vocabulary coverage in classrooms and textbooks traditionally focuses on lists of target words in printed form, this article promotes the notion of "aural vocabulary" as an important part of…

Purpose: This study examined the potential roles of phonological sensitivity and processing speed in age-related declines of verbal working memory. Method: Twenty younger and 25 older adults with age-normal hearing participated. Two measures of verbal working memory were collected: digit span and serial recall of words. Processing speed was…

Two classes of hand action representations are shown to be activated by listening to the name of a manipulable object (e.g., cellphone). The functional action associated with the proper use of an object is evoked soon after the onset of its name, as indicated by primed execution of that action. Priming is sustained throughout the duration of the…

Background: While previous studies have shown that children affected by dyslexia exhibit a deficit in categorical perception of segmental features in alphabetic languages, it remains unclear whether the categorical perception deficit generalizes to nonalphabetic languages at the suprasegmental level. In this study, we investigated the occurrence…

The contribution of genetic factors to the memory is widely acknowledged. Research suggests that these factors include genes involved in the dopaminergic pathway, as well as the genes for brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase (MTHFR). The activity of the products of these genes is affected by single…