Exemplar-based learning requires: (1) a segmentation procedure for identifying the units of past experiences that a present experience can be compared to, and (2) a similarity function for comparing these past experiences to the present experience. This article argues that for a learner to learn a language these two mechanisms will require…

There is a growing list of examples illustrating that infants are transitioning from having earlier abilities that appear more "universal," "broadly tuned," or "unconstrained" to having later abilities that appear more "specialized," "narrowly tuned," or "constrained." Perceptual narrowing, a well-known phenomenon related to face, speech, and…

In this paper, we argue that second language (L2) reading research, which has been informed by studies involving first language (L1) alphabetic English reading, may be less relevant to L2 readers with non-alphabetic reading backgrounds, such as Chinese readers with an L1 logographic (Chinese character) learning history. We provide both…

This commentary addresses the relevance of detectability to a theory of learning uninterpretable features in the second language (L2). Detectability of features is illustrated in an application of Signal Detection Theory. By analogy with development of phonemic categories in the first language (L1), the notion of paring down the repertoire of…

Presents a postscript to the current authors' comment on the original article, "Short-term memory for serial order: A recurrent neural network model," by M. M. Botvinick and D. C. Plaut. In their commentary, the current authors demonstrated that Botvinick and Plaut's (2006) model of immediate serial recall catastrophically fails when familiar…

At the turn of the twentieth century, the sound of presidential address changed from an orotund style to an instructional style. The orotund style had featured the careful pronunciation of consonants, elongated vowels, trilled r's and repeated declamations. The instructional style, on the other hand, mimicked the conversational lectures of the…

This paper proposes a reading support technique for Arabic students of English. These students must overcome the L1 interference "reversal of reading direction." PowerPoint presentations, utilizing a simple fade effect with adjustable delay between words such that the text appears nicely in a left-to-right manner, line by line with voice…

Caramazza et al. [Caramazza, A., Chialant, D., Capasso, R., & Miceli, G. (2000). Separable processing of consonants and vowels. "Nature," 403(6768), 428-430.] report two patients who exhibit a double dissociation between consonants and vowels in speech production. The patterning of this double dissociation cannot be explained by appealing to…

One of the most important skills for children to develop in the kindergarten year is the recognition that letters and sounds are related. It is often called "the alphabetic principle"--the notion that speech sounds can be connected to letters in a predictable way. To grasp the alphabetic principle, children need to understand that: (1) letters…

Argues that the phoneme is a meaning-bearing unit--not a sound--and must be used in conjunction with semantic and syntactic information. (AEW)

Elaborates the view that phonological recoding, or print-to-sound translation, is a self-teaching mechanism enabling learners to acquire the orthographic representations necessary for visual word recognition. Discusses developmental properties of phonological recoding, reviews evidence on the importance of cognitive abilities underlying the…

There are at least two kinds of phonetic knowledge: phoneme synthesis and analytic knowledge. In phoneme synthesis a person demonstrates phonetic knowledge by being able to assemble segments into larger units. With analytic knowledge one knows that syllables or words are analyzable into constituent segments. One type of knowledge enables learning…

A practical orthography is presented for Kuuk Thaayorre, which is spoken by over 300 Aborigines in Australia. The phonemes in Thaayorre and the way they are symbolized in normal writing practice are presented. Frequent occurrence of six conventional digraphs for some Thaayorre consonants has given rise to complementary orthography as an initial…

Describes the Torus Model of phonological space, which illustrates the usefulness of distinctive feature theory. (AM)

Analyzes the nature of punctuation, its functions (syntactic, suprasegmental, and semantic), its role in written language, and punctuation as grapheme. (AM)