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Complexity and Blocked Trial Presentation in a Novel Verb Generalization Task
Title
Complexity and Blocked Trial Presentation in a Novel Verb Generalization Task.
Creator
Pruzansky, Rita, Kersten, Alan, Florida Atlantic University, Charles E. Schmidt College of Science, Department of Psychology
Abstract/Description
The current study examined the role of complexity and initial variability of exemplars during learning in verb generalization. Children and adults learned two novel verbs in the context of two novel creatures across two sessions. After a second training session, participants completed a generalization task during which they were required to identify the verbs when presented with seven novel creatures of varying levels of complexity. Performance was compared across age group and condition....
Show moreThe current study examined the role of complexity and initial variability of exemplars during learning in verb generalization. Children and adults learned two novel verbs in the context of two novel creatures across two sessions. After a second training session, participants completed a generalization task during which they were required to identify the verbs when presented with seven novel creatures of varying levels of complexity. Performance was compared across age group and condition. Participants who initially learned the verbs in the context of a single, simple exemplar demonstrated a higher proportion of correct responses than participants who initially learned the verbs with both a simple & complex exemplar. These results provide evidence that fewer exemplars during initial training of novel verbs may increase learning in young children, as well as some evidence that complex exemplars may increase the difficulty of learning and generalizing verbs.
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Date Issued
2016
PURL
http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00004622
Subject Headings
Psycholinguistics., Language acquisition., Cognitive grammar.
Format
Document (PDF)
Verb acquisition and generalization strategies of preschool children
Title
Verb acquisition and generalization strategies of preschool children.
Creator
Pruzansky, Rita, Earles, Julie, Kersten, Alan
Date Issued
2012-04-06
PURL
http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/3350924
Subject Headings
Child development, Cognitive grammar, Language acquisition --Age factors, Language arts (Early childhood), Psycholinguistics, Children --Language
Format
Document (PDF)
application of the less is more hypothesis in foreign language learning
Title
The application of the less is more hypothesis in foreign language learning.
Creator
Chin, Simone L., Charles E. Schmidt College of Science, Department of Psychology
Abstract/Description
This study tests Newports Less is More hypothesis with a language teaching experiment. Computerized French language lessons were presented to forty-two adults over two one-hour sessions. Learning trials were presented either in full sentences to resemble the adult learning environment, or in small increments that gradually increased to full sentences, resembling the steadily expanding processing capabilities of children. Trials were also presented randomly or ordered such that multiple...
Show moreThis study tests Newports Less is More hypothesis with a language teaching experiment. Computerized French language lessons were presented to forty-two adults over two one-hour sessions. Learning trials were presented either in full sentences to resemble the adult learning environment, or in small increments that gradually increased to full sentences, resembling the steadily expanding processing capabilities of children. Trials were also presented randomly or ordered such that multiple examples of the same objects and verbs were presented consecutively. Language proficiency tests were administered after the lessons. A 2 (Presentation: incremental or full sentence) x 2 (Order of presentation: blocked or random) mixed ANOVA was used to analyze the data. The incremental conditions outperformed the sentence conditions on all proficiency measures. There was no significant effect of the blocking manipulation. This outcome suggests that a teaching method based on Newport's Less is More hypothesis can be advantageous in learning a foreign language.
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Date Issued
2009
PURL
http://purl.flvc.org/FAU/368254
Subject Headings
Second language acquisition, Methodology, Language and languages, Study and teaching, Cognitive grammar, Biolinguistics, Human information processing
Format
Document (PDF)
The effects of gesturing, blocked order, and incremental presentation in foreign language learning
Title
The effects of gesturing, blocked order, and incremental presentation in foreign language learning.
Creator
Chin, Simone L., Kersten, Alan, Florida Atlantic University, Charles E. Schmidt College of Science, Department of Psychology
Abstract/Description
Research in second language acquisition reveals that adults have difficulty learning the grammatical aspects of a foreign language. The present study investigated the efficacy of three teaching methods that were predicted to help adults better learn the grammar of a foreign language. First, lessons were presented in small pieces that gradually increased to full sentences. Second, lesson trials were blocked such that multiple examples of sentences with the same object or verb were presented...
Show moreResearch in second language acquisition reveals that adults have difficulty learning the grammatical aspects of a foreign language. The present study investigated the efficacy of three teaching methods that were predicted to help adults better learn the grammar of a foreign language. First, lessons were presented in small pieces that gradually increased to full sentences. Second, lesson trials were blocked such that multiple examples of sentences with the same object or verb were presented consecutively. Third, participants were instructed to gesture the actions of the verbs within sentences. All three methods were predicted to increase the likelihood of learning the grammar form of sentences through guiding adults’ attention to fewer components of language input at a time. In Experiment 1, 82 English native speakers played an adventure videogame designed for the learning of French vocabulary and grammar of French sentences for two one-hour sessions. All three methods were incorporated in the lessons portion of the game resulting in a 2(incremental vs. full sentence) X 2(blocked vs. unblocked order) X 2(gesture vs. no gesture) between subjects design. The results from Experiment 1 revealed a) more nouns were acquired than verbs and b) a trend that the incremental conditions performed worse than the full sentence conditions on the grammar measures. In Experiment 2, 110 adult learners played the French videogame, but only the blocked presentation and gesture imitation methods were incorporated in the lessons portion (omitting the method of incremental presentation). The results from Experiment 2 revealed a) conditions with either method of blocked presentation or gesturing performed better on vocabulary and grammar measures than the unblocked non-gesture condition, and b) the combination of blocked presentation and gesturing led to better learning of inductive grammar than either method alone. The outcome of the study suggests gesturing and blocked order teaching methods that encourage adults to attend to a few but important components within a sentence are advantageous in learning the grammar of a foreign language.
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Date Issued
2014
PURL
http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00004186, http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00004186
Subject Headings
Bilingualism, Biolinguistics, Cognitive grammar, Language and languages -- Study and teaching, Nonverbal communication, Second language acquisition -- Methodology
Format
Document (PDF)
Verb acquisition and generalization strategies of preschool children
Title
Verb acquisition and generalization strategies of preschool children.
Creator
Pruzansky, Rita, Harriet L. Wilkes Honors College
Abstract/Description
This experiment tested 3 to 5-year-old children's (n=18) abilities to learn a novel verb in the context of one or two novel objects. We showed the children claymation videos of novel creatures performing two novel actions. They were then tested on whether they could correctly identify the action that a creature was performing in the form of a 'yes' or 'no' response. Children in the blocked condition, who learned the verbs in the context of one creature, responded correctly more often (p=.01)...
Show moreThis experiment tested 3 to 5-year-old children's (n=18) abilities to learn a novel verb in the context of one or two novel objects. We showed the children claymation videos of novel creatures performing two novel actions. They were then tested on whether they could correctly identify the action that a creature was performing in the form of a 'yes' or 'no' response. Children in the blocked condition, who learned the verbs in the context of one creature, responded correctly more often (p=.01) than children in the grouped condition, who learned the verbs in the context of two creatures. Results were similar when tested again one week later. These findings suggest that when teaching young children verbs, it may be more effective to first teach in the context of one object so that the children have a more confident understanding of the verb meaning.
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Date Issued
2012
PURL
http://purl.flvc.org/FAU/3359311, http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FADT3359311
Subject Headings
Language acquisition, Age factors, Child development, Language awareness in children, Psycholinguistics, Language arts (Early childhood), Cognitive grammar
Format
Document (PDF)
Verb Memory and Text Comprehension
Title
Verb Memory and Text Comprehension.
Creator
Khan, Lamiya, Kersten, Alan, Florida Atlantic University, Charles E. Schmidt College of Science, Department of Psychology
Abstract/Description
Kersten, Earles, and Berger (2015) reported a distinction between two kinds of motion representations. Extrinsic motions involve the path of a person or object, with respect to an external frame of reference. Intrinsic motions involve the manner in which the various parts of a person or object move. They found that intrinsic motions are encoded and remembered with the corresponding actor performing the motions in a unitized memory representation. Extrinsic motions are encoded as separate...
Show moreKersten, Earles, and Berger (2015) reported a distinction between two kinds of motion representations. Extrinsic motions involve the path of a person or object, with respect to an external frame of reference. Intrinsic motions involve the manner in which the various parts of a person or object move. They found that intrinsic motions are encoded and remembered with the corresponding actor performing the motions in a unitized memory representation. Extrinsic motions are encoded as separate memory representations, making them more difficult to accurately associate with the correct actor. In the proposed experiment, I will examine the generality of this distinction in motion representation, and investigate whether the unitization of intrinsic motion with its corresponding actor occurs during reading comprehension tasks.
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Date Issued
2016
PURL
http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00004799, http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00004799
Subject Headings
Recollection (Psychology), Context effects (Psychology), Cognitive grammar., Semantics--Psychological aspects., Knowledge, Theory of., Linguistic analysis (Linguistics), Human information processing.
Format
Document (PDF)