小学4～6年级儿童数学应用题表征模型的使用研究

该研究考察了小学4～6年级学生在数学应用题中理解阶段和执行阶段使用表征模型的情况,研究运用实验法对某普通小学的158名4～6年级学生进行了应用题改写任务和缩写任务.结果表明：（1）学生在理解阶段更多地选择情境条件,使用情境模型来表征问题;在执行阶段较少选择情境条件,转而使用问题模型来表征问题;（2）随着年级的升高,相对于优等生来说,其他学生在缩写任务中对情境条件的选择数量越来越少,而优等生在这方面一直都做得很好.差等生识别多余条件的能力并没有随着年级的升高而发生改变,而优等生却在不断增强.     

Effects of targets embedded within words in a visual search task

Visual search performance can be negatively affected when both targets and distracters share a dimension relevant to the task. This study examined if visual search performance would be influenced by distracters that affect a dimension irrelevant from the task. In Experiment 1 within the letter string of a letter search task, target letters were embedded within a word. Experiment 2 compared targets embedded in words to targets embedded in nonwords. Experiment 3 compared targets embedded in words to a condition in which a word was present in a letter string, but the target letter, although in the letter string, was not embedded within the word. The results showed that visual search performance was negatively affected when a target appeared within a high frequency word. These results suggest that the interaction and effectiveness of distracters is not merely dependent upon common features of the target and distracters, but can be affected by word frequency (a dimension not related to the task demands).     

The Interplay of Cross‐Situational Word Learning and Sentence‐Level Constraints

A variety of mechanisms contribute to word learning. Learners can track co‐occurring words and referents across situations in a bottom‐up manner (cross‐situational word learning, CSWL). Equally, they can exploit sentential contexts, relying on top–down information such as verb–argument relations and world knowledge, offering immediate constraints on meaning (word learning based on sentence‐level constraints, SLCL). When combined, CSWL and SLCL potentially modulate each other's influence, revealing how word learners deal with multiple mechanisms simultaneously: Do they use all mechanisms? Prefer one? Is their strategy context dependent? Three experiments conducted with adult learners reveal that learners prioritize SLCL over CSWL. CSWL is applied in addition to SLCL only if SLCL is not perfectly disambiguating, thereby complementing or competing with it. These studies demonstrate the importance of investigating word‐learning mechanisms simultaneously, revealing important characteristics of their interaction in more naturalistic learning environments.     

词汇飞跃的本质:命名洞察力的实证研究

通过个案跟踪和控制实验探讨了词汇飞跃的本质。研究结果表明命名洞察力具有现实性,且词汇飞跃与命名洞察力的出现紧密相关,这在一定程度上解释了儿童词汇量快速增长的原因。命名洞察力的获得促进了词汇的快速增长,标志着儿童建立起词汇与指称之间的匹配关系。词汇飞跃之后,儿童很快建立起词语间的符号关系,并最终促进了儿童语法的发展。基于此实证结果,本研究还建构了诠释词汇飞跃本质的理论模型。     

An examination of age-related changes in the control of lexical and sublexical pathways in mapping spelling to sound

The current study investigated the extent to which young and older adults are able to direct attention to distinct processes in mapping spelling onto sound. Young and older adults completed either a speeded pronunciation task (reading aloud words) or regularization task (pronouncing words based on spelling-to-sound correspondences, e.g., pronouncing PINT such that it rhymes with HINT) in order to bias processing of lexical, whole-word information, or sublexical, spelling-to-sound mapping, respectively. Both younger and older adults produced reduced word-frequency effects and lexicality effects in the regularization task compared to the normal pronunciation task. Importantly, compared to younger adults, older adults produced exaggerated effects of task (i.e., pronunciation vs. regularization) on the observed frequency and lexicality effects. These results highlight both the flexibility of the lexical processing system and changes in the influence of the underlying lexical route due to additional 50 years of reading experience and/or changes in attentional control.     

Masked suffix priming and morpheme positional constraints

Although masked stem priming (e.g., dealer–DEAL) is one of the most established effects in visual word identification, it is less clear whether primes and targets sharing a suffix (e.g., kindness–WILDNESS) also yield facilitation. In a new take on this issue, we show that prime nonwords facilitate lexical decisions to target words ending with the same suffix (sheeter–TEACHER) compared to a condition where the critical suffix was substituted by another one (sheetal–TEACHER) or by an unrelated nonmorphological ending (sheetub– TEACHER). We also show that this effect is genuinely morphological, as no priming emerged in noncomplex items with the same orthographic characteristics (sportel–BROTHEL vs. sportic–BROTHEL vs. sportur–BROTHEL). In a further experiment, we took advantage of these results to assess whether suffixes are recognized in a position-specific fashion. Masked suffix priming did not emerge when the relative order of stems and suffixes was reversed in the prime nonwords—ersheet did not yield any time saving in the identification of teacher as compared to either alsheet or obsheet. We take these results to show that –er was not identified as a morpheme in ersheet, thus indicating that suffix identification is position specific. This conclusion is in line with data on interference effects in nonword rejection and strongly constrains theoretical proposals on how complex words are identified. In particular, because these findings were reported in a masked priming paradigm, they suggest that positional constraints operate early, most likely at a prelexical level of morpho-orthographic analysis.     

语言经验对概率词切分的影响

概率词切分指个体利用音节间的转换概率切分语流、发现词语边界的过程。经典的概率词切分研究多采用“学习-测试”范式, 首先要求被试切分一段无意义人工语言, 随后对切分效果进行测试。近年来, 研究者逐渐关注语言经验对概率词切分的影响, 具体包括语音经验和被试掌握的语言知识两方面。今后的研究, 一方面可以更多地关注普通话母语者的语言经验如何作用于概率词切分过程; 另一方面还可以在语言经验的分类上进行拓展, 细分群体语言经验和个体语言经验的影响。     

Motor processing modulates word comprehension

We evaluated whether movement modulates the semantic processing of words. To this end, we used homograph words with two meanings, one associated with hand movements (e.g., ‘abanico’, ‘fan’ in Spanish) or foot movements (‘bota’, ‘boot’ in Spanish), and the other not associated with movement (‘abanico’, ‘range’ in Spanish; ‘bota’, ‘wineskin’ in Spanish). After the homograph, three words were presented, and participants were asked to choose the word related to one of the two homograph meanings. The words could be either related to the motor meaning of the homograph (‘fan-heat’), to the non-motor meaning of the homograph (‘range-possibility’) or unrelated (‘fan-phone’). The task was performed without movement (simple condition) or by performing hand (Experiment 1) and foot (Experiment 2) movements. Compared with the simple condition, the performance of movement oriented the preference towards the motor meaning of the homograph. This pattern of results confirms that movement modulates word comprehension.     

Are brand names special words? Letter visual-similarity affects the identification of brand names,but not common words

Brand names are often considered a special type of words of special relevance to examine the role of visual codes during reading: unlike common words, brand names are typically presented with the same letter-case configuration (e.g., IKEA, adidas). Recently, Pathak et al. (European Journal of Marketing, 2019, 53 , 2109) found an effect of visual similarity for misspelled brand names when the participants had to decide whether the brand name was spelled correctly or not (e.g., tacebook [baseword: facebook] was responded more slowly and less accurately than xacebook). This finding is at odds with both orthographically based visual-word recognition models and prior experiments using misspelled common words (e.g., viotin [baseword: violin ] is identified as fast as viocin ). To solve this puzzle, we designed two experiments in which the participants had to decide whether the presented item was written correctly. In Experiment 1, following a procedure similar to Pathak et al. (European Journal of Marketing, 2019, 53 , 2109), we examined the effect of visual similarity on misspelled brand names with/without graphical information (e.g., anazon vs. atazon [baseword: amazon ]). Experiment 2 was parallel to Experiment 1, but we focused on misspelled common words (e.g., anarillo vs. atarillo ; baseword: amarillo [yellow in Spanish]). Results showed a sizeable effect of visual similarity on misspelled brand names – regardless of their graphical information, but not on misspelled common words. These findings suggest that visual codes play a greater role when identifying brand names than common words. We examined how models of visual-word recognition can account for this dissociation.