 Psycholinguistics/Cognitive Science (esp. Working Memory and Language) Research Papers (original) (raw)

Throughout antiquity memory played a central role in the production, publication, and transmission of texts. Greek mnemotechnics started developing as early as the 6th century bc and by the 2nd century bc memory established itself as a formal division of rhetoric. Techniques of memorization are described at length in ancient rhetorical or scientific works (such as Aristotle’s De memoria), or alluded to in literary works. The theory of mnemotechnics was concerned with how to learn virtually any text by heart, but there is no systematic discussion of what makes a text intrinsically easy to memorize, nor of how to compose in a memory-friendly manner. However, passing remarks scattered throughout ancient Greek texts show that some awareness existed that certain stylistic and structural features improve the memorability of texts. A systematic study of these primary sources reveals that (a) memorization was not regarded as specifically functional to oral performance alone, and (b) the Greek literary and technical writers consciously looked at the mnemonic advantage of stylistic and structural features only when they wanted to favour the memory of the audience, not that of the performer.

Title: The cognitive benefits of bilingualism: what role does working memory play?
The idea that bilingualism may have positive cognitive effects has received a significant amount of attention in scientific literature as well as in the press. It is difficult, however, to specify exactly what those cognitive advantages are. There are studies that suggest that they involve only specific aspects of executive control. In this direction, a number of studies have focused on the possible roles of inhibition and " shifting ". Fewer studies, however, have focused on the involvement of working memory and how it can be influenced by the experience of processing more than one language. The present contribution falls within this line of research. We present the preliminary results of a study that compared the relative performance on executive function tasks in a group of monolingual and bilingual children growing up in Southern Italy, with a special emphasis on the role of working memory.

This study investigated how resource-demanding reading tasks and stressful conditions affect 1st-language (L1) and intermediate 2nd-language (L2) reading comprehension. Using the attentional control theory framework (Eysenck, Derakshan, Santos, & Calvo, 2007), we investigated the roles of central executive working memory (WM) resources, reading task difficulty, trait reading anxiety, and social evaluative stress on L1 and L2 readers‚Äô comprehension. Eighty-six L2 Spanish readers and 70 L1 English readers were tested for comprehension using noninference (fact), bridging inference, and pragmatic inference questions under either no-stress or social-evaluative stress conditions. Stress reduced processing efficiency (producing longer reaction times) for L2 readers who were high in reading anxiety and increased processing efficiency for L1 readers who were high in WM capacity. Stress did not affect reading effectiveness (accuracy). Thus, stress only impaired reading efficiency when task difficulty was high due to high inferential complexity or reading in an L2 and when anxious thoughts competed for limited central executive WM resources. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.

This study reports a comprehensive and in-depth synthesis of the theory and research on the role of working memory and language aptitude in mediating the process and product of second language (L2) interaction. The synthesis integrates meta-analysis and narrative review, using the former approach to aggregate the results and the latter to report themes and patterns that emerged from the studies. Altogether 24 studies were retrieved examining the relationships
between the two cognitive variables and various aspects of L2 interaction. With regard to working memory, the results showed that (1) it had significant, albeit weak, associations with the effects of corrective feedback, (2) its associations with noticing the gap and producing modified output were variable and inconsistent, and (3) whereas phonological short-term memory may facilitate the development of oral ability, executive working memory may be essential for oral performance. Unlike working memory’s weak predictive power, language aptitude was found to be a strong predictor of the effects of corrective feedback. However, similar to the pattern for working memory, language aptitude was significantly more correlated with the effects of explicit feedback than those of implicit feedback. The overall weak effects of working memory were attributable to the salience of the instructional treatments and the methodological
inconsistency of the primary studies such as the diverse measures of noticing. The finding that both working memory and language aptitude were more heavily implicated in explicit than implicit treatments points to the need to explore implicit language learning abilities.

- by Mandy Faretta-Stutenberg
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- Working Memory, Neurolinguistics, Study Abroad, Event-Related Potentials

In this article we review publications relevant to addressing widely reported claims in both the academic and popular press that chimpanzees working memory (WM) is comparable to, if not exceeding, that of humans. WM is a complex multidimensional construct with strong parallels in humans to prefrontal cortex and cognitive development. These parallels occur in chimpanzees, but to a lesser degree. We review empirical evidence and conclude that the size of WM in chimpanzees is 2 ± 1 versus Miller's famous 7 ± 2 in humans. Comparable differences occur in experiments on chimpanzees relating to strategic and attentional WM subsystems. Regardless of the domain, chimpanzee WM performance is comparable to that of humans around the age of 4 or 5. Next, we review evidence showing parallels among the evolution of WM capacity in hominins ancestral to Homo sapiens, the phylogenetic evolution of hominins leading to Homo sapiens, and evolution in the complexity of stone tool technology over this time period.

- by Dwight Read and +2
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- Cognitive Psychology, Cognitive Science, Evolutionary Psychology, Human Evolution

Departing from a cognitive account of oral speech production, the present study aimed at (1) identifying the role silent pause distribution has in defining fluency, and (2) disentangling the relationship between working memory capacity (WMC) and second language (L2) fluency. Data was gathered at the Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, from 12 Brazilians (native speakers of Brazilian Portuguese – BP – and L2 speakers of English) and 9 Americans (native speakers of American English – AE). All participants carried out picture description and narrative tasks, orally and spontaneously, in their first languages (L1s). The Brazilian participants also performed these oral tasks in their L2 (English) and a WMC test – the L2 Speaking Span Test (L2 SST). Participants’ fluency was assessed through frequency of pauses at and within clause boundaries and mean length of run (MLR). The α level was set at .05. The statistical analyses employed indicated that while the two first languages under scrutinity (AE and BP) did not differ regarding pause distribution or MLR, the L2 (English) speech of the Brazilians presented more pauses (especially within boundaries) and shorter MLRs than both their own L1 (BP) speech and the L1 (AE) speech of the Americans. Moreover, significant correlations were found between individuals’ L2 SST scores and frequency of within boundary pauses and MLR. Concerning fluency, the results support the role MLR has in defining fluency and demonstrate the importance of frequency of pauses within rather than at boundaries in distinguishing less and more fluent speakers. As regards the relation between L2 fluency and L2 WMC, it seems that due to being more controlled than L1, L2 oral speech is at least in part constrained by individuals’ limited attentional resources, with larger-capacity speakers being better able to sustain L2 fluency (with fewer pauses within boundaries and longer speech runs) than those speakers with fewer resources.

- by Donesca C P Xhafaj
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- Cognition, Speech Production, Working Memory, Fluency

Tabula Rasa of human mind is compartmentalised and departmentalised into trillions of units. Each units makes a faculty. There are several trillions of faculty, make several trillions of specialties. Can we list down these numbers: think of a a typical library cataloguing: the number of titles topics and subtopics and specialties. Think of science; basically breaks down into Physics, Chemistry and Biology. Think only of the number of topics and titles we can break Physics into. Comparative Religion and several others ad infinitum, this list in-exhaustive. It is not a gainsaying that the list is endless. More studies are opening up. If that is the case, we can imagine how complex and numerous this departmentalisation and compartmentalisation of organic tabula rasa would be. The human tabula rasa contains these infinite number of units that are interconnected through neural network. Each unit houses a speciality schema. So the picture of human tabula rasa is such complexity and numbers. The content of each unit is seen as a schemeta, so there are trillion of such schemeta that makes the Schema. Each unit is termed a faculty. The ability to automate coordinate, and integrate some or all of these units is what is known as logic and Mathematical operations. Fig: 1 An Illustration of Schemata Hypothetically, Tabula rasa units is a network of a typical web that are interconnected and interactive as shown in the diagram above. This interconnection is endless. This domain of mathematic and logic operation is commonly known as working memory. Tabula rasa or brain hypothetically has three domain termed (i) Sensory Memory (ii) Working Memory (or short term memory) and (iii) Long term memory. Some schools of thought called these (a) Unconscious mind (b) Subconscious mind and (c) Conscious mind. Sigmund Freud's talked about (i) Id (ii) Ego (iii) Superego. All theory and hypotheses come to explain the structure and functions of mind. The page attempts to explain the working (short term) memory domain of the brain or tabula rasa. For clarity of purpose Brain, Mind or Psyche or memory will be referred to most often as Tabula Rasa. It enables easy diagrammatic representations of illustrations.

This is a Paradigm III Bible Translation that was pioneered by Wycliffe Associates in 2014 by Dan Kramer. It follows an 8-step process that utilizes brain-based research and allied fields. The Oral Bible Translation grew out of more than a decade of immersion in the field both as an executive, an educator, and a practitioner. The comparative protocols will show how Bible translation is carried out among those who are able to read and write as well as those who by culture, decision, and deprivation are non-readers and writers, aka, Oral People. By using two applications - BTT Recorder & BTT Writer - an Oral Bible Translation can advance to a Written Bible Translation.

- by Romerlito Macalinao
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- Andragogy, Working Memory, Affective Neuroscience, Visual Working Memory

This study examines the differences in working memory benefits in bilingual versus monolingual adults using ERPs while measuring non-verbal and verbal tasks. In 1974 Baddeley and Hitch constructed the first model, which separated working memory into three components: phonological loop, visual-spatial sketchpad, and the central executive (Baddeley, 2003). Through the first model of working memory, neuroscientists explored this theory focusing on the activation regions of the brain. It was found that the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), the anterior cingulate (ACC), and the parietal cortex (PAR) were primary associated with working memory activation (Chai et al., 2018). The study of working memory and bilingualism advantage have been experimented using children, young and older bilinguals while comparing them to monolinguals (Hansen et al., 2016; Kaushanskaya et al., 2014; Bialystok et al., 2014). The children's studies found inconclusive results, suggesting the importance of age groups and methodology (Kaushanskaya et al., 2014). It was more successfully found and controlled in older bilinguals using nonverbal versus verbal tasks (Lukasik,2018). Event-Related Potential (ERPs) have been used to establish a connection between bilingual advantage and working memory capacity (Morrison et al., 2018; Kousai & Phillips, 2017). It has been found that through the N200 and P300, differences in response can be seen between bilinguals and monolinguals (Morisson & Taler, 2020). In this current study, older bilinguals and monolinguals will be gathered to test the Stroop task (verbal) and n-back task (non-verbal) while using ERPs. It is hypothesized that there will be a bilingual advantage with faster reaction times, less interference, and evidence seen on the N200 and P300 amplitudes.

The relation between multilingual learning and cognition through (linguistic) giftedness has not been studied yet in third language acquisition, multilingualism or cognition studies. Even though 'giftedness' appears to be enigmatic and advantageous in a number of areas, in the field of language learning it is not clear whether multilingual learning or giftedness fulfils the triggering role in a number of cognitive skills. For that purpose, the present study observed the possible cognitive advantages of multilingual learning on metalinguistic awareness (Jessner 2006), working memory (Baddeley & Hitch 1974; Robinson 2002; 2012) and first language lexicon size of a number of children from regular and gifted education programmes in a Dynamic Model of Multilingualism perspective (Herdina & Jessner 2002). The study was analyzed with the multiple linear regression model based on the scores gathered from the data of working memory and vocabulary sub-tests of the Turkish adaptation version (Savaşır & Şahin 1995) of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised, and metalinguistic awareness test (Pinto et al. 1999) of a number of mono-, bi-and multilingual participants from various schools. The results not only provided positive correlations between multilingual learning and metalinguistic awareness, working memory and first language lexicon size but also contributed to the identification and reconceptualization of linguistic giftedness.

- by Ferhat Dolas and +1
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- Languages and Linguistics, Psycholinguistics, Applied Linguistics, Language Development

This paper explores the content of the somniloquies of Dion McGregor, the most extensive sleep talker ever recorded, and compares these with dream content from normative male dreams on the Hall and van de Castle Content Scales (1966) and Hobson (et al., 1987) Bizarreness Scales. On the Hall and van de Castle Scales, the somniloquies contained significantly more female characters relative to males than for the norms, more familiar characters and friends, but fewer family members. The dreamer-as-character was much likelier to be either a befriender or an aggressor than in the normative dreams but much less likely to engage in physical aggression specifically. There was less aggression, friendliness, or sex per character in McGregor’s narratives, as well as less of all three of these types of interaction total than for the norms, but much more self negativity. There was a lower percentage of negative emotions, good fortune, and success, but the somniloquies were similar to the norms in their levels of misfortune and failure. On the Hobson Bizarreness Scales, the McGregor somniloquies were not differentiated from dreams on 3 of 6 scales—having similar levels of discontinuity of plot, characters, object, or actions but had slightly fewer incongruities of plot, and many fewer instances of incongruity or uncertainly of thought. These findings are discussed in terms of presumed brain activation differences—more frontal activation--and also in terms of McGregor’s (1964) personal idiosyncrasies.

- by Deirdre Barrett
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- Languages, Neuroscience, Psychology, Abnormal Psychology

The listening span task is a measure of working memory that requires participants to process sets of increasing numbers of utterances and store the last word of each utterance for recall at the end of each set. Measures to date have contained an exceedingly demanding processing component, possibly leading to insufficient resources to meet the word recall requirement, which may have affected the sensitivity of the measure to distinguish different levels of working memory. Further, tasks thus far have asked participants to verify the content utterances based on knowledge, which may have confounded the measurement of working memory capacity with world knowledge. An additional weakness is that they lack sound psychometric construct validity evidence, which clouds what these tools actually measure. This pilot study presents a listening span task that accounts for preceding methodological shortcomings, which was administered to 31 Japanese junior high school students. The participants listened to ten sets (two sets of equal length of two, three, four, five and six utterances) of short casual utterances, judged whether they made sense in Japanese, and recalled the last word of each utterance in the set. Performance was assessed through a scoring procedure new to listening span tasks in which credit is given for the words recalled in order of appearance until memory failure. The data was analyzed through the Rasch model, which produces evidence for different aspects of validity and indicates if the items in a test measure a unidimensional construct. The results provided validity evidence for the use of the new listening span task and revealed that the instrument measured a single unidimensional construct.

- by Bartolo Bazan
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- Assessing Performance, Working memory (Psychology), Verbal working memory, Validity

We compared 121 native and 114 non-native speakers of Dutch (with 35 different first languages) on four digit-span tasks, varying modality (visual/auditory) and direction (forward/backward). An interaction was observed between nativeness and modality, such that, while natives performed better than the non-natives on the auditory tasks (which were performed in the non-natives’ second language), performance on the visual tasks (which was performed in participants’ dominant language) did not significantly differ between natives and non-natives. The interaction between nativeness and modality disappeared when the data were corrected for Dutch proficiency. Correction for Dutch proficiency elevated non-native speakers’ scores on the auditory tasks, without altering the non-natives’ digit-span rank order. Despite considerable differences in mean length of the digit names zero to nine in the non-natives’ first languages, these differences were not significantly correlated with their visual digit-span scores. While further research is needed on the sources of variation in digit-span performance, we recommend the use of the visual digit-span task (forward or backward) for cross-linguistic research and advise researchers to be aware of the association between language proficiency and verbal working-memory performance.

Cognitive neuroscience has built up a solid scientific literature since about 1990, especially due to revolutionary advances in brain recording techniques, and clarification of the kinds of experimental techniques that bear directly on conscious cognition. We are living in a Golden Age of scientific studies of consciousness (and therefore also unconsciousness, volition, and identity, three classically linked isues).
HOWEVER, the leading edge of reliable discoveries has outrun our ability to keep up. As a result, we keep inventing the same wheel over and over again. We still have no real curriculum in scientific studies of consciousness. This is unfortunate.
This brief set of images is useful for teaching purposes. Sources are either in the public domain, or credited to this author under a Creative Commons license.
Please feel free to use these materials. I will upload more instructional slideshows if you are interested.
Please let me know.

- by Bernard Baars and +1
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- Cognitive Psychology, Psychoanalysis, Memory (Cognitive Psychology), Cognitive Neuroscience

This study present a collection of examples of verbatim language in dreams, with analyses of how this is altered relative to waking language. Grammar is well-preserved in these dreams while meaningfulness is distorted relative to waking criteria. Novel nouns receive special emphasis as do extra-vocal cues such as voice tone. Dreams with verbatim language tend to be unusually long, vivid, and emotionally salient, though this may be a byproduct differential dream recall affecting both. The present findings will be compared to past research data on language in dreams, and discussed in relation to what's known about brain areas involved in dreaming and areas involved in different linguistic processes.

- by Deirdre Barrett
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- Languages, Neuroscience, Psychology, Abnormal Psychology

I grew up in the Philippines. I was there in the 60s. I was there in the 70s. I was an American, and a lot of us were around. Vietnam was not far away, and the American bases of Clark Air Field and Subic Bay were strategic. My parents had... more

- by Asian Journal of Pentecostal Studies and APTS Press and +1
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- Religion, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Cognitive Psychology, Cognitive Science

Recent fMRI studies comparing the processing
of alphabetic versus logographic scripts provide evidence
for shared and orthography-specic regions of neural activity.
The present study used near-infrared spectroscopy to
compare (within and across brain regions) the time course
of neural activation for these two distinct orthographies.
Native readers of English and of Chinese were tested on a
homophone judgment task. Differences across groups were
obtained in the time course of hemodynamic change for the
left middle frontal, left superior temporal, and left supramarginal
gyri. Results thus support previous findings using
fMRI and suggest that different neural mappings arise
depending on whether an individual has learned to process
written language using an alphabetic or logographic script.

- by Hsin-Chin Chen and +1
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- Cognitive Psychology, Hemispheric Asymmetries, Bilingualism & the brain, Psycholinguistics

автореферат диссертации по филологии,
специальность ВАК РФ 10.02.19

- by Gayane Hovhannisyan
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- Semiotics, Cognitive Psychology, Anthropology, Education

Despite widespread acknowledgment of the importance of online semantic maintenance, there has been
astonishingly little work that clearly establishes this construct. We review the extant work relevant to
short-term retention of meaning and show that, although consistent with semantic working memory, most
data can be accommodated in other ways. Using a new concurrent probe paradigm, we then report
experiments that implicate a semantic maintenance capacity that is independent of phonological or visual
maintenance that may build on a mechanism of direct semantic maintenance. Experiments 1 through 5
established that while subjects maintain the meaning of a word, a novel delay-period marker of semantic
retention, the semantic relatedness effect, is observed on a concurrent lexical decision task. The semantic
relatedness effect refers to slowed response times when subjects make a lexical decision to a probe that
is associatively related to the idea they are maintaining, compared to when the probe is unrelated. The
semantic relatedness effect occurred for semantic but not for phonological or visual word-form maintenance,
dissipated quickly after maintenance ends, and survived concurrent articulatory suppression. The
effect disappeared when subjects performed our immediate memory task with a long-term memory
strategy rather than with active maintenance. Experiment 6 demonstrated a parallel phonological
relatedness effect that occurs for phonological but not semantic maintenance, establishing a full double
dissociation between the effects of semantic and phonological maintenance. These findings support a
distinct semantic maintenance capacity and provide a behavioral marker through which semantic working
memory can be studied.

- by Michael Anderson and +1
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- Memory (Cognitive Psychology), Cognitive Control, Working Memory, Semantic Memory

Filler-gap dependencies are created whenever a constituent is
dislocated from its base position. A prototypical example is
given by A’-movement in wh-questions. In this case, a clauseinitial
wh-element is linked to its corresponding gap in a
lower, c-commanded position. Different factors might
influence the human parser in resolving filler-gap
dependencies, as (a) the properties of the filler and (b) the
presence of an intervener. In this paper, I present the result of
a new self-paced reading experiment in which a particular
kind of intervention effect, i.e. the one created by the sentential
negative maker, will be observed in relation to different types
of wh-constituents, distinguished in accordance to the
oppositions +/- argument and +/- referential.

The language classroom is a complex environment with a multitude of factors contributing to the students’ experiences. Largely outside of the awareness of teachers, researchers, and language learners themselves, private speech forms the foundation for language internalization (Gass, 2013; Ohta, 2001). This research focuses specifically on two aspects of private speech: repetition and language play in an introductory, undergraduate French language classroom. Student surveys, audio recordings of individuals during class, and interviews were conducted and synthesized to better understand the student learning experience. Findings from this study are presented as starting points for further lines of inquiry in second language acquisition research.