We present two eye-tracking experiments that investigate lexical frequency and semantic context constraints in spoken-word recognition in German. In both experiments, the pivotal words were pairs of nouns overlapping at onset but varying in lexical frequency. In Experiment 1, German listeners showed an expected frequency bias towards…

This study presents the results of three experiments in which the Family Size (FS) effect is explored. The first experiment is carried out with no prime on simple words. The second and third experiments are carried out with morphological priming on complex words. In the first experiment a facilitatory effect of FS is observed: high FS targets…

Misspellings in sentences are usually easy to understand by readers due to top-down influences. Although top-down processing allows for fluent reading of misspelled items, the nature of their representations in memory is not known. If representations of misspellings are distinct from representations of correctly spelled words, their influence…

The modality effect is a central issue in multimedia learning [see Mayer (Cambridge University Press, 2005a), for a review]. Sweller's Cognitive Load Theory (CLT), for example, presumes that an illustrated text is better understood when presented visually rather than orally. The predictive power of CLT lies in how it links in to Baddeley's (1986)…

The present study focuses on the interplay between the linguistic principles and the psycholinguistic processes involved in reading. Results from 56 participants on a letter detection task reveal that readers do not process all function words in the same manner. Omission rates were highest for function words occupying the head of maximal…

This study investigates the naming process of contextually non-categorical objects in children from 3 to 9 plus 13-year-olds. 112 children participated in the study. Children were asked to narrate a story individually while looking at Mercer Mayer's textless, picture book "Frog, where are you?" The narratives were audio recorded and transcribed.…

Statistical segmentation of continuous speech, i.e., the ability to utilise transitional probabilities between syllables in order to detect word boundaries, is reflected in the brain's auditory event-related potentials (ERPs). The N1 and N400 ERP components are typically enhanced for word onsets compared to random syllables during active…

The potential role of orthographic representations on spoken word production was investigated with speakers of Chinese, a non-alphabetic and orthographically non-transparent language. Using the response generation procedure, we obtained the well-known facilitation from word-initial phonological overlap, but this effect was unaffected by whether or…

The study aimed at investigating the role of nominal gender in animal categorization in preschoolers. Given the regularities characterizing gender system, at both syntactical and morphological level, Italian language is suitable to address this issue. In three experiments, participants were asked to classify pictures of animals as male or female.…

This paper examines evidence for a nonlexical influence on children's repetition of real words. We investigate the extent to which two computational models of auditory repetition can simulate the performance of 68 children aged between 5 and 11 years-old when they are attempting to repeat familiar words. Both computational accounts were derived…

We explored the neural correlates of bridging inferences and coherence processing during story comprehension using Positron Emission Tomography (PET). Ten healthy right-handed volunteers were visually presented three types of stories (Strong Coherence, Weak Coherence, and Control) consisted of three sentences. The causal connectedness among…

Nasals are cross-linguistically susceptible to change, especially in the syllable final position. Acoustic reports on Mandarin nasal production have recently shown that the syllable-final distinction is frequently dropped. Few studies, however, have addressed the issue of perceptual processing in Mandarin nasals for L1 and L2 speakers of Mandarin…

There has been very little research in Spanish on the potential role of prosodic skills in reading and spelling acquisition, which is the subject of the present study. A total of 85 children in 5th year of Primary Education (mean age 10 years and 9 months) performed tests assessing memory, stress awareness, phonological awareness, reading and…

Fanaticism and extremism are increasingly recognized as seminal to psychopathology and distress, especially considering the increase in political unrest and violence over the last decade. In the psychopathological literature, however, the cognitive style associated with extremism and overgeneralization has long been recognized as a risk factor for…

The purpose of this study was to determine whether and when individuals with aphasia and healthy controls use lexical and prosodic information during on-line sentence comprehension. Individuals with aphasia and controls (n = 12 per group) participated in a self-paced listening experiment. The stimuli were early closure sentences, such as "While…