In order processing, consecutive sequences (e.g., 1-2-3) are generally processed faster than nonconsecutive sequences (e.g., 1-3-5) (also referred to as the reverse distance effect). A common explanation for this effect is that order processing operates via a memory-based associative mechanism whereby consecutive sequences are processed faster…

Purpose: Acoustic-prosodic entrainment, defined as the tendency for individuals to modify their speech behaviors to more closely align with the behaviors of their conversation partner, plays an important role in successful interaction. From a mechanistic perspective, acoustic-prosodic entrainment is, by its very nature, a rhythmic activity.…

Word identification accuracy is modulated by many factors including linguistic characteristics of words (frequent vs. infrequent), listening environment (noisy vs. quiet), and listener-related differences (older vs. younger). Nearly, all studies investigating these factors use high-familiarity words and noise signals that are either energetic…

In the current research, we aimed to investigate whether there are significant differences in participants' attitudes towards adults with disabilities (AWD) and children with disabilities (CWD). We also explored a series of demographical factors (i.e. gender, age, educational level, parental status, contact with a friend or a family member with a…

Background: Few studies have evaluated the explanatory factors of poor performance and the effects of context in adults with intellectual disabilities. The aim of this study is to assess the role of a familiar experimenter on their cognitive performance, well-being, metacognitive experiences, and social behaviors. Method: Participants with…

Purpose: The experiment reported here compared two hypotheses for the poor statistical and artificial grammar learning often seen in children and adults with developmental language disorder (DLD; also known as specific language impairment). The "procedural learning deficit hypothesis" states that implicit learning of rule-based input is…

Corrective feedback is often touted as a critical benefit to learning, boosting testing effects when retrieval is poor and reducing negative testing effects. Here, we explore the dark side of corrective feedback. In three experiments, we found that corrective feedback on multiple-choice (MC) practice questions is later endorsed as the answer to…

Visual scene displays (VSDs) are becoming an increasingly popular method of message representation within augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) supports; however, design factors can influence the effectiveness of these images as communication supports. One issue that has come to light in recent years is the fact that selecting…

Background: Despite the increasing longevity of people with intellectual disability, community care systems are ill prepared to support the choices of people with intellectual disabilities for ageing well. This study aims to understand ageing experiences among middle-aged adults with intellectual disabilities and their family carers with a focus…

Our ability to perceive our own and other people's bodies is critical to the success of social interactions. Research has shown that adults have a distorted perception of their own body and those of other adults. However, these studies ask perceivers to estimate for adults with a similar bodily make-up. This study explored the developmental…

Although statistical learning (SL) has been studied extensively in developmental dyslexia (DD), less attention has been paid to other fundamental challenges in language acquisition, such as cross-situational word learning. Such investigation is important for determining whether and how SL processes are affected in DD at the word level. In this…

This cross-cultural study examined Koreans' and Americans' explicit stigma and implicit biases toward autism to examine potential mechanisms underlying recent evidence for heightened explicit autism stigma in South Korea relative to the United States. This evidence is somewhat at odds with other evidence that individuals living in collectivistic…

While previous work on postverbal subjects in Italian has shown that young children are sensitive to the effects of argument structure and definiteness, little is known about the acquisition of postverbal subjects at the VP-periphery. In response, the present study investigated such subjects under new-information focus by monolingual Italian…

This research aimed to evaluate the links between metacognitive experiences, emotional coping strategies and categorization in adults with severe and moderate intellectual disabilities. The participants consisted of 32 people between 23 and 70 years old and having severe and moderate intellectual disabilities were recruited in several…

In this investigation, we examine the contribution of intrinsic content density (ICD) to measures of expository text processing. In Studies 1 and 2, the factor structure of select text density metrics was examined and refined using two text samples (Ns = 150) randomly selected from an expository text corpus. Scores on the ICD measure based on the…