The Social Regulation of Classroom Performances: a Theoretical Outline

Based on 20 years of research on the social regulation of academic performances, this paper provides arguments for the idea that the social context in which cognitive functioning takes place is an integral part of that functioning, not just the surrounding context for it. Several studies in the classroom setting indeed reveal that student's cognitive performances can depend on interactions between their actual and past social experiences, most notably interpersonal comparison and evaluation episodes. Because of their recurrence, these episodes can become part of student's autobiographical memory and, therefore, can affect their actual behavior in specific conditions. Theoretical suggestions are made for a ‘social psychology of cognition.’ This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Word recognition in child second language learners: Evidence from cognates and false friends

We studied how Dutch children learned English as a second language (L2) in the classroom. Learners at different levels of L2 proficiency recognized words under different task conditions. Beginning learners in primary school (fifth and sixth grades) and more advanced learners in secondary school (seventh and ninth grades) made lexical decisions on words that are similar for English and Dutch in both meaning and form (“cognates”) or only in form (“false friends”). Cognates were processed faster than matched control words by all participant groups in an English lexical decision task (Experiment 1) but not in a Dutch lexical decision task (Experiment 2). An English lexical decision task that mixed cognates and false friends (Experiment 3) led to consistently longer reaction times for both item types relative to controls. Thus, children in the early stages of learning an L2 already activate word candidates in both of their languages (language-nonselective access) and respond differently to cognates in the presence or absence of false friends in the stimulus list.     

Speech motor skill and stuttering

The authors review converging lines of evidence from behavioral, kinematic, and neuroimaging data that point to limitations in speech motor skills in people who stutter (PWS). From their review, they conclude that PWS differ from those who do not in terms of their ability to improve with practice and retain practiced changes in the long term, and that they are less efficient and less flexible in their adaptation to lower (motor) and higher (cognitive-linguistic) order requirements that impact on speech motor functions. These findings in general provide empirical support for the position that PWS may occupy the low end of the speech motor skill continuum as argued in the Speech Motor Skills approach (Van Lieshout, Hulstijn, & Peters, 2004).     

Understanding voice perception

Voices carry large amounts of socially relevant information on persons, much like 'auditory faces'. Following Bruce and Young (1986)'s seminal model of face perception, we propose that the cerebral processing of vocal information is organized in interacting but functionally dissociable pathways for processing the three main types of vocal information: speech, identity, and affect. The predictions of the 'auditory face' model of voice perception are reviewed in the light of recent clinical, psychological, and neuroimaging evidence.     

Maternal depressive symptomatology and child behavior: transactional relationship with simultaneous bidirectional coupling

The present study investigated reciprocal relationships between adolescent mothers and their children's well-being through an analysis of the coupling relationship of mothers' depressive symptomatology and children's internalizing and externalizing behaviors. Unlike studies using discrete time analyses, the present study used dynamical systems to model time continuously, which allowed for the study of dynamic, transactional effects between members of each dyad. Findings provided evidence of coupling between maternal depressive symptoms and children's behaviors. The most robust finding was that as maternal depressive symptoms became more or less severe, children's behavior problems increased or decreased in a reciprocal manner. Results from this study extended upon theoretical contributions of such authors as Richters (1997) and Granic and Hollenstein (2003), providing empirical validation from a longitudinal study for understanding the ongoing, dynamic relationships between at-risk mothers and their children.     

Speech Motor Skill and Stuttering

The authors review converging lines of evidence from behavioral, kinematic, and neuroimaging data that point to limitations in speech motor skills in people who stutter (PWS). From their review, they conclude that PWS differ from those who do not in terms of their ability to improve with practice and retain practiced changes in the long term, and that they are less efficient and less flexible in their adaptation to lower (motor) and higher (cognitive–linguistic) order requirements that impact on speech motor functions. These findings in general provide empirical support for the position that PWS may occupy the low end of the speech motor skill continuum as argued in the Speech Motor Skills approach (Van Lieshout, Hulstijn, & Peters, 2004).     

Thinking the voice: neural correlates of voice perception

The human voice is the carrier of speech, but also an "auditory face" that conveys important affective and identity information. Little is known about the neural bases of our abilities to perceive such paralinguistic information in voice. Results from recent neuroimaging studies suggest that the different types of vocal information could be processed in partially dissociated functional pathways, and support a neurocognitive model of voice perception largely similar to that proposed for face perception.     

Structure and function of auditory cortex: music and speech

We examine the evidence that speech and musical sounds exploit different acoustic cues: speech is highly dependent on rapidly changing broadband sounds, whereas tonal patterns tend to be slower, although small and precise changes in frequency are important. We argue that the auditory cortices in the two hemispheres are relatively specialized, such that temporal resolution is better in left auditory cortical areas and spectral resolution is better in right auditory cortical areas. We propose that cortical asymmetries might have developed as a general solution to the need to optimize processing of the acoustic environment in both temporal and frequency domains.