Does code-switching influence novel word learning?

Code-switching occurs regularly in the input to bilingual children. Yet, the effect of code-switched input on language development is unclear. To test whether word learning would be affected by code-switching, Spanish–English bilingual children (N = 45, 19 boys, Mean_Age = 5.05 years; ethnicity: 37 Hispanic/Latino, six Non-Hispanic/Latino, two unreported) were taught English-like novel words in two conditions. In the English-only condition, definitions for novel words were provided entirely in English. In the code-switch condition, definitions for novel words were provided in English and Spanish, incorporating code-switches. Children required fewer exposures to retain novel words in the code-switch than the English-only condition and this effect was not moderated by children's language ability or exposure to code-switching, suggesting that code-switched input does not pose word-learning risks to bilingual children, including children with lower levels of language ability.     

A nuclear novel: Nostradamus Says …

This Is the Way the World Ends, by James Morrow, London: Gollancz, 1987, 319 pages, hb £10.95     

What constrains children's learning of novel shape terms?

In this study, 3-year-olds matched on vocabulary score were taught three new shape terms by one of three types of linguistic contrast: corrective, semantic, or referential. A 5-week training paradigm implemented four training sessions and four assessment sessions. Corrective contrast ("This is concave, it is not square," where square is the child's label for the target) produced more learning than did either semantic or referential contrast. In addition, regardless of group, more was learned about those targets that were classified more variably at pretest. Avoidance of lexical overlap (i.e., using more than one term for the same dimension) might make it more difficult for children to learn new dimensional adjectives, and a "shape bias" might make learning shape terms easier. However, children's expectations about the speaker's communicative intent interacted with the potential benefits of contrast in the semantic condition, and children in that group learned no more than did controls.     

How do we process novel conceptual combinations in context?

Most theories of how people interpret novel noun–noun combinations (e.g., ghost forest) do not sufficiently address the role of context, which is surprising given that novel combinations are generally encountered in discourse contexts. We evaluated three hypotheses for the role of context in interpretation. The generation hypothesis states that interpretation is based on sense generation both in and out of context. The anaphor resolution hypothesis states that interpretation initially involves identifying a referent from the prior discourse context, and meaning generation occurs only if anaphoric processing fails. The dual-process hypothesis states that sense generation and anaphor resolution operate in parallel, and both may influence initial interpretation. In two experiments, we examined reading times on novel combinations when the dominant meaning (most likely interpretation) or subordinate meaning (infrequent interpretation) preceded or followed the combination in text. Results supported the dual-process hypothesis.     

How do we process novel conceptual combinations in context?

Most theories of how people interpret novel noun-noun combinations (e.g., ghost forest) do not sufficiently address the role of context, which is surprising given that novel combinations are generally encountered in discourse contexts. We evaluated three hypotheses for the role of context in interpretation. The generation hypothesis states that interpretation is based on sense generation both in and out of context. The anaphor resolution hypothesis states that interpretation initially involves identifying a referent from the prior discourse context, and meaning generation occurs only if anaphoric processing fails. The dual-process hypothesis states that sense generation and anaphor resolution operate in parallel, and both may influence initial interpretation. In two experiments, we examined reading times on novel combinations when the dominant meaning (most likely interpretation) or subordinate meaning (infrequent interpretation) preceded or followed the combination in text. Results supported the dual-process hypothesis.     

Humans’ responses to novel stimulus compounds and the effects of training

Twenty-four college students participated in an experiment with stimulus compounds. Subjects learned to discriminate color stimuli that correlated with varying probabilities of reinforcement. Reinforcement consisted of points. For all subjects, two colors signaled a .80 reinforcement probability, and two others signaled a .20 probability. For compound-trained subjects, a fifth compound stimulus (composed of a high-probability color and a low-probability color) was correlated with a .10 reinforcement probability. During testing, interspersed probe trials required subjects to choose between two alternatives: a compound stimulus and either one of its constituent stimuli. Compound-untrained subjects preferred the compound over either individual stimulus, thus showing response summation. However, compound-trained subjects, having had experience with an exemplar compound, showed significantly lower choice proportions for a test compound, indicating that subjects’ responding to novel stimulus compounds is modifiable by experience with a single similar compound.     

Brief “response prevention” in a novel place can facilitate avoidance extinction

Three experiments in which rats learned an active avoidance response and were then confined for a brief period in the shock chamber (response prevention) prior to extinction testing are presented. Control groups of rats were confined for equal time periods in other locations. Response prevention reliably facilitated extinction. Groups confined in novel or fear-eliciting locations also showed facilitated extinction, but groups confined in familiar locations did not. Results are discussed in relation to fear-reduction, competing-response, and species-specific-defense-reaction (SSDR) explanations for the effect of response prevention, and are shown to be most consistent with the SSDR hypothesis.     

Correcting distorted perception of sleep in insomnia: a novel behavioural experiment?

Patients with primary insomnia overestimate their sleep onset latency (SOL) and underestimate their total sleep time (TST). The present study aimed to test the utility of a novel behavioural experiment designed to correct distorted perception of sleep among patients diagnosed with primary insomnia. Individuals with primary insomnia were asked to wear an actigraph and keep a sleep diary for three nights. On the following day, half were shown the discrepancy between the data recorded on the actigraph and their sleep diary (Shown-Discrepancy Group), the other half were not shown the discrepancy (No-Demonstration Group). Participants were then asked to wear the actigraph and keep a sleep diary for three further nights. Following the behavioural experiment, the Shown-Discrepancy Group estimated their SOL more accurately and reported less anxiety and preoccupation about sleep compared to the No-Demonstration Group. The theoretical and clinical implications of these findings are discussed.     

Does providing props during preparation help children to remember a novel event?

We investigated the conditions under which preparatory information presented 1 day before a novel event influenced 6-year-olds' recall 1 week later. Children were assigned to one of six experimental conditions. Three conditions involved preparatory information that described the event accurately but differed according to the presence and type of props (verbal, real props, and toy props). In two conditions, which also differed according to whether verbal information was supplemented with real props, half of the preparatory information described the event accurately, whereas the other half was thematically similar to, but inconsistent with, the event (misleading verbal and misleading props). Compared with the attentional control condition, all forms of preparation that described the event accurately increased correct recall. Preparation that included props improved photograph recognition. When half of the accurate information was replaced by misleading information, the positive benefit on recall was reduced, and when misleading props accompanied the misleading information, errors increased. The potential underlying mechanisms and implications for pediatric settings are discussed.     

Newborn visual attention to repeated exposure of redundant vs “novel” targets

This study was designed to test the proposition that habituation in the newborn human is specific to repetition of a single impinging stimulus. Using a group (3) by sex (2) by trials (8) repeated measures factorial design, 120 newborn infants were repeatedly presented with a single visual target (2 × 2 or 12 × 12 black and white checkerboard) or exposed to a series of different targets, and the infants’ visual fixation time was measured. Infants exposed to the multiple target series had a significantly greater mean visual fixation time than did infants repeatedly presented with a single target. However, all groups of infants displayed response decrement in fixation time with repeated target exposure. In addition, infants receiving the multiple target series displayed differential visual fixation to the stimuli, with, in general, targets of greater redundancy (Le., those having a higher degree of spatial repetition and duplication of elements) being most “preferred.” These results suggest that young human infants are receptive and responsive to stimulus change in the immediate visual environment.     

Does humor in radio advertising affect recognition of novel product brand names?

The authors proposed that item selection during shopping is based on brand name recognition rather than recall. College students rated advertisements and news stories of a simulated radio program for level of amusement (orienting activity) before participating in a surprise recognition test. Humor level of the advertisements was varied systematically, and content was controlled. According to signal detection analysis, humor did not affect the strength of recognition memory for brand names (nonsense units). However, brand names and product types were significantly more likely to be associated when appearing in humorous advertisements than in nonhumorous advertisements. The results are compared with prior findings concerning humor and recall.     

Are bilingual children better at ignoring perceptually misleading information? A novel test

Does speaking more than one language help a child perform better on certain types of cognitive tasks? One possibility is that bilingualism confers either specific or general cognitive advantages on tasks that require selective attention to one dimension over another (e.g. Bialystok, 2001 ; Hilchey & Klein, 2011 ). Other studies have looked for such an advantage but found none (e.g. Morton & Harper, 2007 ; Paap & Greenberg, 2013 ). The present study compared monolingual and bilingual children's performance on a numerical discrimination task, which required children to ignore area and attend to number. Ninety‐two children, ages 3 to 6 years, were asked which of two arrays of dots had ‘more dots’. Half of the trials were congruent, where the numerically greater array was also larger in total area, and half were incongruent, where the numerically greater array was smaller in total area. All children performed better on congruent than on incongruent trials. Older children were more successful than younger children at ignoring area in favor of number. Bilingual children did not perform differently from monolingual children either in number discrimination itself (i.e. identifying which array had more dots) or at selectively attending to number. The present study thus finds no evidence of a bilingual advantage on this task for children of this age.     

Outcome producing potential influences twelve-month-olds’ interpretation of a novel action as goal-directed

Learning about a novel, goal-directed action is a complex process. It requires identifying the outcome of the action and linking the action to its outcome for later use in new situations to predict the action or to anticipate its outcome. We investigated the hypothesis that linking a novel action to a salient change in the environment is critical for infants to assign a goal to the novel action. We report a study in which we show that 12-month-old infants, who were provided with prior experience with a novel action accompanied with a salient visible outcome in one context, can interpret the same action as goal-directed even in the absence of the outcome in another context. Our control condition shows that prior experience with the action, but without the salient effect, does not lead to goal-directed interpretation of the novel action. We also found that, for the case of 9-month-olds infants, prior experience with the outcome producing potential of the novel action does not facilitate a goal-directed interpretation of the action. However, this failure was possibly due to difficulties with generalizing the learnt association to another context rather than with linking the action to its outcome.     

Narrating attachment: Some lessons learned from Charles Dickens' novel ‘Little Dorrit’

In this paper the author aims to explore the way in which contemporary society is informed by the values of technology, and how this ‘technological milieu’ influences the practice of counselling and therapy. The philosopher Albert Borgmann identifies some of the values of technology as efficiency, speed of results and ease of availability. While acknowledging technology's undoubted benefits, Borgmann warns that allowing these values to dictate ever more aspects of life threatens to impoverish us. In contrast with technological devices, the ‘focal’ experiences which give our lives meaning are rich and complex, as much to do with the journey as with reaching a goal. In this paper, the author argues that it is important to try and preserve counselling and psychotherapy as focal experiences, despite increasing pressure to conform to a more technological approach. In the light of this, the drive towards evidence-based treatments, the promotion of time-limited focused approaches to treatment and current trends such as the interest in neuropsychological approaches to attachment theory are examined.     

A novel,short and easy-to-perform method to evaluate newborns’ social olfactory preferences

Animal Cognition - Humans’ early olfactory perception has been studied mainly within the framework of mother–offspring interactions and only a few studies have focused on...     

Pre-event discussion and recall of a novel event: how are children best prepared?

We investigated the conditions under which information 1 day before a novel event influenced 6-year-olds' recall 2 weeks later. In Experiment 1A, four preparation conditions included either the event goals, goals with narration of the event actions and objects, photographs of the objects with goals and narration, or photographs with narration and child verbalization of the actions and objects. Compared with an irrelevant preparation control condition, goals with narration reduced errors, but correct recall was increased only when photographs were included. Child verbalization together with goals, narration, and photographs increased correct recall relative to goals with narration. In Experiment 1B, neither photographs nor preparation alone improved recall relative to the control condition. Experiment 2 found no further advantage of increasing children's participation in the preparation via questions. Overall, the impact of preevent information on memory is influenced by the nature of the information and the child's participation in the preparation.     

Basis of recency and frequency judgements of novel faces: Generalised strength or episode-specific memories?

Evidence for generalised and episode-specific strength in judgements of recency and frequency of novel faces was investigated in two experiments. Novel faces (created using an identikit program) were presented either once or three times in either of two study sets, separated by a 4 minute (Experiment 1) or 24 hour (Experiment 2) delay. In Experiment 2, the study–test phases were preceded by a familiarisation phase in which faces were presented either with or without an occupational label (some faces were not familiarised). In both experiments, judgements of recency were consistent with greater reliance on generalised strength (an amalgamation of recency and frequency of presentation), although there was some evidence for a contribution of episode-specific information. Familiarisation had opposite effects on judgements of recency and frequency, with familiarised faces judged as having been studied more frequently (three times), but less recently (yesterday) than unfamiliarised faces. The latter result is consistent with participants discounting generalised strength when episode-specific information is inadequate.