The purpose of this study was to expand the current literature on word definitions by focusing on definitions of idioms provided by several age groups. Preadolescents, young adolescents, older adolescents, and adults wrote definitions for 10 frequently used idioms and also rated their familiarity with the idiomatic expressions. Participants'…

Retrieval monitoring enhances episodic memory accuracy. For instance, false recognition is reduced when participants base their decisions on more distinctive recollections, a retrieval monitoring process called the distinctiveness heuristic. The experiments reported here tested the hypothesis that autobiographical elaboration during study (i.e.,…

There is abundant evidence from behavioral and neurophysiological experiments for the distinction of natural versus artifactual categories and a gender-specific difference: women's performances in cognitive tasks increase when natural categories are used, whereas men's performances increase with artifactual categories. Here, we used the semantic…

Two experiments explored the neural mechanisms underlying the learning and consolidation of novel spoken words. In Experiment 1, participants learned two sets of novel words on successive days. A subsequent recognition test revealed high levels of familiarity for both sets. However, a lexical decision task showed that only novel words learned on…

We examined developmental aspects of the ability to monitor the temporal context of an item's previous occurrence while event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded. In a continuous recognition task, children between 10 and 12 years and young adults watched a stream of pictures repeated with a lag of 10-15 intervening items and indicated…

The current study compared 3 models of recognition memory in their ability to generalize across yes/no and 2-alternative forced-choice (2AFC) testing. The unequal-variance signal-detection model assumes a continuous memory strength process. The dual-process signal-detection model adds a thresholdlike recollection process to a continuous…

Within a European project on Networked Interaction in Foreign Language Acquisition and Research (NIFLAR), "Second Life" was used as a 3D virtual world in which language students can communicate synchronously with native speakers in the target language, while undertaking action together. For this context, a set of design principles for…

This study investigated whether masked priming is mediated by existing memory representations by determining whether nonwords targets would show repetition priming. To avoid the potential confound that nonword repetition priming would be obscured by a familiarity response bias, the standard lexical decision and naming tasks were modified to make…

This study examined the perception of the four Mandarin lexical tones by Mandarin-naive Hong Kong Cantonese, Japanese, and Canadian English listener groups. Their performance on an identification task, following a brief familiarization task, was analyzed in terms of tonal sensitivities (A-prime scores on correct identifications) and tonal errors…

Five experiments explored the effects of immediate repetition priming on episodic recognition (the "Jacoby-Whitehouse effect") as measured with forced-choice testing. These experiments confirmed key predictions of a model adapted from D. E. Huber and R. C. O'Reilly's (2003) dynamic neural network of perception. In this model, short prime durations…

Change of first language (L1) status from the most stable language to a less accessible language over the life-span of a bilingual individual is termed "language attrition". Such a shift in ease of L1 access has been reported to affect the lexicon (Pelc, 2001) more than other aspects of language. However, whether L1 attrition is affected by…

We investigated longitudinally the development of attention in two free-play tasks and the relation between attention in those tasks and language ability in toddlerhood. We observed developmental differences in attention from 9 and 31 months both as children investigated a single object and as they investigated multiple objects. Attention in these…

Under many conditions auditory input interferes with visual processing, especially early in development. These interference effects are often more pronounced when the auditory input is unfamiliar than when the auditory input is familiar (e.g. human speech, pre-familiarized sounds, etc.). The current study extends this research by examining how…

Tracking of multiple moving objects is commonly assumed to be carried out by a fixed-capacity parallel mechanism. The present study proposes a serial model (MOMIT) to explain performance accuracy in the maintenance of multiple moving objects with distinct identities. A serial refresh mechanism is postulated, which makes recourse to continuous…

Recently, infant researchers have reported sex differences in infants' capacity to map their representation of an occlusion sequence onto a subsequent no-occlusion display. The research reported here sought to identify the extent to which these sex differences are observed in event-mapping tasks and to identify the underlying basis for these…