Perceiving Pain in Others: Automatic and Controlled Mechanisms

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Older adults have difficulty in decoding sarcasm

This research was funded by the Leverhulme Trust, United Kingdom (F/00152/W). We acknowledge the assistance of Francis Quinn in collecting the data.Peer reviewedPostprin

More is more in language learning:reconsidering the less-is-more hypothesis

The Less-is-More hypothesis was proposed to explain age-of-acquisition effects in first language (L1) acquisition and second language (L2) attainment. We scrutinize different renditions of the hypothesis by examining how learning outcomes are affected by (1) limited cognitive capacity, (2) reduced interference resulting from less prior knowledge, and (3) simplified language input. While there is little-to-no evidence of benefits of limited cognitive capacity, there is ample support for a More-is-More account linking enhanced capacity with better L1- and L2-learning outcomes, and reduced capacity with childhood language disorders. Instead, reduced prior knowledge (relative to adults) may afford children with greater flexibility in inductive inference; this contradicts the idea that children benefit from a more constrained hypothesis space. Finally, studies of childdirected speech (CDS) confirm benefits from less complex input at early stages, but also emphasize how greater lexical and syntactic complexity of the input confers benefits in L1-attainment

Perceiving and expressing feelings through actions in relation to individual differences in empathic traits : the Action and Feelings Questionnaire (AFQ)

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

The Relationship Between Social Intelligence and Hearing Loss

This study was an exploration of adults with long-term hearing loss (LTHL) and how it may relate to social intelligence (SI) proficiency. The outcome of this study was intended to illuminate a gap in the literature, namely, the manner in which those with long-term LTHL were able to understand social situations and communicate with others when auditory comprehension was limited. A quantitative nonexperimental method was used that provided the Tromso Social Intelligence Scale (TSIS) to a group of 66 adults with LTHL who were diagnosed with hearing loss as children, as well as a group of 70 adults with no discernable hearing loss (NDHL). The TSIS was used to determine if those with LTHL would have scored higher on the total scale score and the subscales of social information processing and social awareness, than would those with NDHL. The results of the study were determined by an independent t test. There was no significant difference in the total scale and subscale scores between LTHL and NDHL for this relatively small samples study. These findings could aid the hearing loss community at large through a focus on SI skills to improve confidence and communication for those with LTHL. One social change benefit of this study demonstrates that SI for people with LTHL is comparable to people with NDHL. Such a finding suggests that while people with LTHL did not rate higher in SI, they also are not impaired in social situations because of their hearing loss

Bilingualism: Consequences for Mind and Brain

Building on earlier evidence showing a beneficial effect of bilingualism on children’s cognitive development, we review recent studies using both behavioral and neuroimaging methods to examine the effects of bilingualism on cognition in adulthood and explore possible mechanisms for these effects. This research shows that bilingualism has a somewhat muted effect in adulthood but a larger role in older age, protecting against cognitive decline, a concept known as “cognitive reserve”. We discuss recent evidence that bilingualism is associated with a delay in the onset of symptoms of dementia. Cognitive reserve is a crucial research area in the context of an aging population; the possibility that bilingualism contributes to cognitive reserve is therefore of growing importance as populations become increasingly diverse

Working Memory and Language Learning: A Review

Children with speech, language, and communication needs (SLCN) form a highly heterogeneous group including those with an unexplained delay in language development known as specific language impairment (SLI). There is growing recognition that multiple mechanisms underlie the range of profiles observed in these children. Broadly speaking, both the domain-general executive attentional system known as working memory and domain-specific linguistic processing have been implicated in children with SLI. It has been challenging to tease apart these influences, however, due to the symbiotic relationship between working memory and language learning. For example, working memory limits might constrain the linguistic detail encoded whereas poor language knowledge would place greater demands on working memory for retaining unfamiliar phonological information. There is growing evidence for separable impairments in these processing resources leading to relative deficits in linguistic or working memory processes in different children. Such findings have important clinical implications for both the assessment and treatment of children with SLCN

Electrophysiological Correlates of Natural Language Processing in Children and Adults

To understand the causes of differences in language ability we must measure the specific and separable processes that contribute to natural language comprehension. Specifically, we need measures of the three language subsystems – semantics, syntax, and phonology – as they are used during the comprehension of real speech. Event-Related Potentials (ERPs) are a promising approach to reaching this level of specificity. Previous research has identified distinct ERP effects for each of the subsystems – the N400 to semantic anomalies, the Anterior Negativity and P600 to syntactic anomalies, and the Phonological Mapping Negativity to unexpected speech sounds. However, these studies typically use stimuli and tasks that encourage processing that differs from real-world language comprehension. Further, previous ERP studies indexing language processing in young children not only use unfamiliar tasks, but also typically exclude data from the large proportion of children. We need to measure language-related ERPs in a context as close as possible to real-world processing, and in a manner that includes data from representative rather than highly-selected samples of children. The experiments described in this dissertation achieve that goal. Adults and five-year-old children listened to a child-directed story while answering comprehension questions. Infrequent violations were included to independently probe the three language subsystems. In children and adults, the canonical N400 response was evident in response to semantic violations. Morphosyntactic violations elicited a long-duration Anterior Negativity without a later P600. Phonological violations on suffixes elicited a Phonological Mapping Negativity in adults. This is the first report of this phonological effect outside of highly-predictable lexical contexts. Popular normed behavioral assessments were also administered to the children who participated in this study. Results from these assessments confirmed that performance on tasks claiming to measure categorically different abilities are correlated with one another, and that language measures correlate with so-called nonverbal measures. ERPs indexing different language subsystem did not correlate with each other or with measures of nonverbal cognitive ability. Using multiple ERP measures during natural language comprehension, we are able to isolate specific aspects of language processing, increasing the possibility of making meaningful connections between biology, experience, and resulting language ability