An assessment of the learning styles of first year medical and dental students of North Bengal Medical College, Darjeeling, West Bengal, India

Background: Learning is the act of acquiring, modifying and reinforcing existing knowledge, behavior, skills and values. This phenomenon of learning is dominated by an individual’s learning style. Learning style is a popular concept in psychology and education, and it refers to how a person learns best. This study aims to identify the Learning Styles of the first year MBBS and BDS students at NBMC by administering the questionnaire of the VARK model.Methods: This cross-sectional study was performed in the Department of Physiology at North Bengal Medical College, West Bengal after. The VARK questionnaire 7.8 version was administered to 180 first year MBBS and BDS students from the 2017-2018 batch who had volunteered for the study. The Questionnaire consisted of 16 questions, along with a scoring chart. Students were allowed to choose more than one option. If in majority of the questions they opted for a single sensory modality they were considered as unimodal learners and if they chose multiple options, they were recognized as multimodal learners.Results: The study showed 57% of the students to be multimodal learners and 43% to be unimodal learners. Read/Write was the most preferred (31.22%) sensory modality followed by kinesthetic mode (29.57%).Conclusions: As majority of our students are multimodal learners teachers should incorporate active teaching and learning strategies to cater to all types of learners. Also, as the most preferred method is Read/Write which includes googling and the use of internet to browse for information, we must try and incorporate e-learning into our curriculum

Not every pseudoword disrupts word recognition: an ERP study

BACKGROUND: If all available acoustic phonetic information of words is used during lexical access and consequently stored in the mental lexicon, then all pseudowords that deviate in a single acoustic feature from a word should hamper word recognition. By contrast, models assuming underspecification of redundant phonological information in the mental lexicon predict a differential disruption of word recognition dependent on the phonological structure of the pseudoword. Using neurophysiological measures, the present study tested the predicted asymmetric disruption by assuming that coronal place of articulation for consonants is redundant. METHODS: Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded during a lexical decision task. The focus of interest was on word medial consonants. The crucial pseudowords were created by replacing the place of articulation of the medial consonant in German disyllabic words. We analyzed the differential temporal characteristics of the N400 pseudoword effect. RESULTS: N400 amplitudes for pseudowords were enhanced compared to words. As the uniqueness and deviation points differ for coronal and non-coronal items, the ERPs had to be correspondingly adjusted. The adjusted ERPs revealed that the N400 pseudoword effect starts earlier for coronal than for non-coronal pseudoword variants. Thus, non-coronal variants are accepted as words longer than the coronal variants. CONCLUSION: Our results indicate that lexical representations of words containing medial coronal consonants are initially activated by their corresponding non-coronal pseudowords. The most plausible explanation for the asymmetric neuronal processing of coronal and non-coronal pseudoword variants is an underspecified coronal place of articulation in the mental lexicon

The effect of phonological and morphological overlap on the processing of Bengali words

In normal language processing, we are continuously analyzing the form and structure of incoming speech signals in order to understand their meaning. At the same time, we unavoidably encounter situations in which words are contained within other words (e.g. ham in hammer). Since morphologically-related words often have a certain amount of phonological overlap, it is essential to understand the relevance of this overlap while investigating morphological processing. The current study provides a psycholinguistic investigation of the processing consequences of Bengali words overlapping in form both with and without being morphologically related. Overall, form-related items elicited significantly less priming than morphologically-related items. Form-related items differing in length by a single segment did not prime one another, while morphologically-related items did. However, form-related items matched in length but differing in a single segment did prime, indicating that relationships between formrelated words are not always straightforward

Still ‘native’? Morphological processing in second-language immersed speakers

Aims and objectives/purpose/research questions: This paper investigates whether sustained immersion in a dominant second-language (L2) environment alters morphological processing strategies compared to those of L1-immersed speakers. Furthermore, we assess the methodological usefulness of a language-mode task in light of the validity of conducting native processing research on L2-immersed speakers. Design/methodology/approach: We use the design and stimuli of a previous long-lag visual lexical decision task conducted with native German speakers in Germany and use this group as a control. Thirty-two native German speakers resident in the UK (>2 years; minimal day-to-day German use) participated in two experimental sessions (one containing a 20-minute conversation task in German). Data and analysis: The data shows clear differences between facilitation patterns of L1 and L2-immersed participants. L2-immersed speakers display decreased sensitivity to subtle morphological differences as well as facilitation in a form condition similar to effects seen in L2 processing. Lexical decisions of pseudowords based on plausibility, however, remain similar. While the pre-experiment language-mode task resulted in overall faster responses, there was no effect on processing patterns. Findings/conclusions: L1 morphological processing is affected by continued exposure to a dominant second language with sensitivity to the internal structure or differences of morphologically complex items decreasing. The attrition group shows certain similarities to L2 morphological processing. Our findings also call for caution in the recruitment of L2-immersed experiment participants. Originality: Research on morphological processing in language attrition is scarce and no previous work has examined complex derived words. The addition of a principled manipulation of the pre-experiment task is also uncommon. Significance/implications: The possible similarity of L1-attrition and L2-learner processing challenges the concept of ‘native’ processing and the notion of ‘nativeness’ as a stable property. Further comparison of these populations may lead to a more thorough understanding of the adaptability of our processing system

(A)symmetry in vowel features in verbs and pseudoverbs: ERP evidence

This paper examines the processing of height and place contrasts in vowels in words and pseudowords, using mismatch negativity (MMN) to determine firstly whether asymmetries resulting from underlying representations found in the processing of vowels in isolation will remain in a word context and secondly whether there is any difference in the way these phonological differences manifest in pseudowords. The stimuli are two sets of English ablaut verbs and corresponding pseudowords (sit~sat/*sif~*saf and get~got/*gef~*gof) contrasting in vowel height ([HIGH] vs. [LOW]) and place of articulation ([CORONAL] vs. [DORSAL]). In line with previous research, the results show a processing asymmetry for place of articulation in both words and nonwords, while different vowel heights result in symmetrical MMN patterns. These findings confirm that an underspecification account provides the best explanation for featural processing and that phonological information is independent of lexical status

Bengali nasal vowels: Lexical representation and listener perception

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Compounds, phrases and clitics in connected speech

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Distinct orthography boosts morphophonological discrimination: Vowel raising in Bengali verb inflections

This study is concerned with how vowel alternation, in combination with and without orthographic reflection of the vowel change, affects lexical access and the discrimination of morphologically related forms. Bengali inflected verb forms provide an ideal test case, since present tense verb forms undergo phonologically conditioned, predictable vowel raising. The mid-to-high alternations, but not the low-to-mid ones, are represented in the orthography. This results in three different cases: items with no change (NoDiff), items with a phonological change not represented in the orthography (PronDiff) and items for which both phonology and orthography change (OrthPronDiff). To determine whether these three cases differ in terms of lexical access and discrimination, we conducted two experiments. Experiment 1 was a cross-modal lexical decision task with auditory primes (1 st PERSON and 3 rd PERSON forms, e.g. [lek he] or [lik hi]) and visual targets (verbal noun; e.g. [lek ha]). Experiment 2 uses eye tracking in a fragment completion task, in which auditory fragments (first syllable of 1 st or 3 rd PERSON form, e.g. [le-] from [lek he]) were to be matched to one of two visual targets (full 1 st and 3 rd PERSON forms, [lek he] vs. [lik hi] in Bengali script). While the lexical decision task, a global measure of lexical access, did not show a difference between the cases, the eye-tracking experiment revealed effects of both phonology and orthography. Discrimination accuracy in the OrthPronDiff condition (vowel alternation represented in the orthography) was high. In the PronDiff condition, where phonologically differing forms are represented by the same graphemes, manual responses were at chance, although eye movements revealed that match and non-match were discriminated. Thus, our results indicate that phonological alternations which are not represented in spelling are difficult to process, whereas having orthographically distinct forms boosts discrimination performance, implying orthographically influenced mental phonological representations

Form or structure? Morphological processing in second-language English speakers: Evidence from long-lag lexical decision

Whether second-language speakers process morphological complexity using native-like strategies has yet to be conclusively established. While some research supports native-like strategies, other evidence suggests a shallower approach with greater reliance on surface similarity. This paper employs a visual lexical decision task with long-lag priming using tri-morphemic stimuli in three conditions, form (fluently-influential), semantic (exceptional-remarkable) and morphological (natural-unnatural), with native English subjects and proficient second-language English speakers (native language Bengali). Both groups show robust morphological priming and, while L2 speakers display a form priming effect, this is significantly reduced compared to morphological priming. The results indicate possible differences in the use of sources of information in first- and second-language processing but show that morphological structure does play a role in the latter.