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- 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
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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.
Show less - 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)
- Title
- THE IMPACT OF DESCRIBING ACTORS AND ACTIONS ON SOURCE MEMORY.
- Creator
- Frank, Colin S., Kersten, Alan, Florida Atlantic University, Department of Psychology, Charles E. Schmidt College of Science
- Abstract/Description
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This research is a first step towards investigating the impact verbal descriptions can have on an individual’s memory for actors performing actions. Previous research has found that verbal descriptions of mugshot-esque, face stimuli can have either a facilitative or inhibitory effect on later recognition. The current study implemented the Person Action Conjunction (PAC) test, along with three separate groups where participants provided descriptions of actions, features of the actors, and...
Show moreThis research is a first step towards investigating the impact verbal descriptions can have on an individual’s memory for actors performing actions. Previous research has found that verbal descriptions of mugshot-esque, face stimuli can have either a facilitative or inhibitory effect on later recognition. The current study implemented the Person Action Conjunction (PAC) test, along with three separate groups where participants provided descriptions of actions, features of the actors, and holistic attributes of the actors. The results demonstrated that the description group impacted the attention placed on either the action or actor, causing participants to remember those described elements more. Furthermore, it was found that accurately recalling descriptions provided at encoding was significantly and positively correlated with recognition performance. Further research is necessary with different control conditions before an impact of verbal description on the memory for actors and actions can be known.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2020
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00013635
- Subject Headings
- Memory, Recognition
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- Title
- Motion and Attention.
- Creator
- Fuller, Nicholas Ward, Kersten, Alan, Florida Atlantic University, Charles E. Schmidt College of Science, Department of Psychology
- Abstract/Description
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The present study examined whether differential motion could influence the spread of attention across an object. In particular, we examined whether the type of motion exhibited by an object would impact the reaction time in which a participant made a judgement on the location of a target or the accuracy of their judgment. We did not find significant effects of motion type upon reaction time. We did find that accuracy was significantly greater for validly cued targets than for invalidly cued...
Show moreThe present study examined whether differential motion could influence the spread of attention across an object. In particular, we examined whether the type of motion exhibited by an object would impact the reaction time in which a participant made a judgement on the location of a target or the accuracy of their judgment. We did not find significant effects of motion type upon reaction time. We did find that accuracy was significantly greater for validly cued targets than for invalidly cued targets. Further investigation may be needed to demonstrate the impact of motion upon the spread of attention across an object.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2018
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00013172
- Subject Headings
- Motion, Attention, Motion--Experiments
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- Title
- A MATTER OF PERSPECTIVE: HOW CAMERA POSITIONING INFLUENCES MEMORY FOR EVERYDAY EVENTS.
- Creator
- Hagen, Allen C., Kersten, Alan, Florida Atlantic University, Department of Psychology, Charles E. Schmidt College of Science
- Abstract/Description
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The current study examined how viewing an event from different perspectives (eye-level and elevated) at both encoding and retrieval changes the recognition of that event. Specifically, participants were shown various manipulations to the scenarios that they witnessed at encoding. The primary focus of the study was the participants’ ability to identify old scenarios along with scenarios that had been manipulated through differences in character clothing, object placement, or temporal order of...
Show moreThe current study examined how viewing an event from different perspectives (eye-level and elevated) at both encoding and retrieval changes the recognition of that event. Specifically, participants were shown various manipulations to the scenarios that they witnessed at encoding. The primary focus of the study was the participants’ ability to identify old scenarios along with scenarios that had been manipulated through differences in character clothing, object placement, or temporal order of events, while still resembling the old scenario in every other way. No support was found to support the prediction that perspective at either encoding or retrieval had an effect on recognition of the scenario or the different manipulation types. An exploratory analysis revealed a trend towards significance for perspective at encoding. An eye-level perspective at encoding was more likely to result in a higher rejection rate for temporal manipulations.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2023
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00014217
- Subject Headings
- Memory, Perspective
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- Title
- Children attend to intrinsic motions when learning nouns.
- Creator
- Iglesias, Adam, Florida Atlantic University, Kersten, Alan, Charles E. Schmidt College of Science, Department of Psychology
- Abstract/Description
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The present research was designed to test whether 3-year-old-English-speaking children preferentially associate novel nouns with intrinsic motion rather than extrinsic motion, as predicted by the theory of Kersten (1998). Intrinsic motion refers to the ways the parts of an object move in relation to one another. In contrast, extrinsic motion refers to the motion of an object as a whole with respect to an external reference point (e.g. another object). In two separate experiments, we...
Show moreThe present research was designed to test whether 3-year-old-English-speaking children preferentially associate novel nouns with intrinsic motion rather than extrinsic motion, as predicted by the theory of Kersten (1998). Intrinsic motion refers to the ways the parts of an object move in relation to one another. In contrast, extrinsic motion refers to the motion of an object as a whole with respect to an external reference point (e.g. another object). In two separate experiments, we demonstrated that nouns are associated with intrinsic motion and verbs are associated with extrinsic motion. Specifically, children were able to detect differences between stimuli paired with novel nouns based on intrinsic motion and stimuli paired with novel verbs based on extrinsic motion. In other words, we shed light on the different motion cues children attend to when learning nouns and verbs. Thus, children utilize motion cues in addition to static characteristics when learning nouns and verbs. Therefore, distinct types of motion information play an important role in the learning of nouns and verbs.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2005
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/13270
- Subject Headings
- Motion, Vocabulary--Study and teaching (Primary), Language acquisition
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- Title
- Intrinsic Motion and Background Stimuli in Event Representation.
- Creator
- Kelly, Roshawn D., Kersten, Alan, Florida Atlantic University, Charles E. Schmidt College of Science, Department of Psychology
- Abstract/Description
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Intrinsic motion pertains to the relative movements of a character’s body parts while mobile, while extrinsic motion pertains to those movements in relation to external landmarks. The current study aimed to explore whether the removal of identifiable features of a person (race and color of clothing) would force witnesses to move their focus to extrinsic motion. Previous studies regarding the concept of intrinsic and extrinsic motion have found that witnesses are more likely to encode...
Show moreIntrinsic motion pertains to the relative movements of a character’s body parts while mobile, while extrinsic motion pertains to those movements in relation to external landmarks. The current study aimed to explore whether the removal of identifiable features of a person (race and color of clothing) would force witnesses to move their focus to extrinsic motion. Previous studies regarding the concept of intrinsic and extrinsic motion have found that witnesses are more likely to encode intrinsic motion with the identity of a person, while extrinsic motion is encoded separately. This made it easier for participants to recognize an actor based on their manner of movement, rather than where the actor was initially seen. By silhouetting the actors and manipulating the background they were shown in later, the current study was able to identify a negative impact on recognition ability when actors were shown against a background they were not initially shown against while silhouetted. The implications of these results are discussed.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2019
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00013224
- Subject Headings
- Unconscious perception, Subliminal perception, Recognition, Human movements, Body language
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- 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
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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.
Show less - 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)
- Title
- Binding Errors and their Relationship to Object-Present and Object-Absent Motion Events.
- Creator
- Pacific, Justin Brooks, Kersten, Alan, Florida Atlantic University, Department of Psychology, Charles E. Schmidt College of Science
- Abstract/Description
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The current study sought to examine further the concept of eyewitness memory for events. Specifically, using filmed events that were performed with objects and events performed without objects, we explored the potential interaction of the object cue and binding or conjunction errors. This specific memory error involves improperly pairing two or more feature memories together in the long-term store. In our study, these features were the action and the actress performing the action. Our study...
Show moreThe current study sought to examine further the concept of eyewitness memory for events. Specifically, using filmed events that were performed with objects and events performed without objects, we explored the potential interaction of the object cue and binding or conjunction errors. This specific memory error involves improperly pairing two or more feature memories together in the long-term store. In our study, these features were the action and the actress performing the action. Our study involved 51 participants. Participants were shown target events in Week 1 and asked to retrieve the target events from a larger group of events in Week 2. While findings did not show the expected interaction of conjunction events to object presence or absence, objects without an object showed a significantly higher acceptance rate. A secondary analysis revealed an interaction effect between head-focus and recognition item type, meaning participants did view events without an object differently from objects with an object.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2006
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00000804
- Subject Headings
- Context effects (Psychology), Eyewitness identification, Recollection (Psychology), Visual perception
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- Title
- Perceptions of Ambiguous Events.
- Creator
- Paulvin, Cleopatre, Kersten, Alan, Florida Atlantic University, Charles E. Schmidt College of Science, Department of Psychology
- Abstract/Description
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This study looked at the effects of stereotypes in the media on memory for ambiguous events. The latter were stimuli created to portray individuals of two different racial groups (white and black) in situations that did not necessarily negatively implicate these actors. Two hundred and thirty six participants took part and viewed these events as well as six media clips. Three groups of media clips were shown: clips with black actors, white actors, and both races. A subset of participants, the...
Show moreThis study looked at the effects of stereotypes in the media on memory for ambiguous events. The latter were stimuli created to portray individuals of two different racial groups (white and black) in situations that did not necessarily negatively implicate these actors. Two hundred and thirty six participants took part and viewed these events as well as six media clips. Three groups of media clips were shown: clips with black actors, white actors, and both races. A subset of participants, the explicit condition, were asked to rate the media clips for stereotypes, whereas another group, the implicit condition, were instructed that these clips were distractions. The participants' main goal was to remember the ambiguous events they saw and distinguish them from a new set of altered - more negative - events from the old items seen at encoding. A main effect of ambiguous events ethnicity was found, which could be interpreted as part icipants having more difficulty remembering black actors.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2015
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00004533, http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00004533
- Subject Headings
- Culture diffusion, Film criticism, Mass media -- Semiotics, Representation (Philosophy), Stereotypes (Social psychology) in mass media, Stereotypes (Social psychology) in television
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- 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
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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.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2016
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00004622
- Subject Headings
- Psycholinguistics., Language acquisition., Cognitive grammar.
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- Title
- Effects of Emotionally Valenced Objects on Associative Memory of Events.
- Creator
- Pugh, Lindsey, Kersten, Alan, Florida Atlantic University, Department of Psychology, Charles E. Schmidt College of Science
- Abstract/Description
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Kersten et al. (2021) revealed that participants remembered negatively valenced actions better than neutral actions, but did no better at binding negative actions with the people who performed them compared to neutral actions. We were interested in testing whether emotion only enhances memory for individual features of an event, or whether emotion can also enhance binding of certain combinations of features. In particular, we tested the effect of emotionally charged objects on the ability to...
Show moreKersten et al. (2021) revealed that participants remembered negatively valenced actions better than neutral actions, but did no better at binding negative actions with the people who performed them compared to neutral actions. We were interested in testing whether emotion only enhances memory for individual features of an event, or whether emotion can also enhance binding of certain combinations of features. In particular, we tested the effect of emotionally charged objects on the ability to remember those objects and the actions associated with them. Participants saw a series of brief videos each involving an actor performing one of two different actions on one of two objects within a specific object category (e.g., guns or piñatas), some objects neutral in valence, some positive, and some negative. Participants were later tested on their ability to distinguish old events from novel conjunctions of particular objects with the actions that had been previously performed with the other members of the same object categories. Although only marginally significant, participants appeared more able to bind objects with their associated actions when those objects held a negative charge compared to neutral objects. Additionally, participants were more sensitive to changes in actions when those actions were associated with negative objects compared to neutral or positive objects. However, false memory increased when new negative objects were presented compared to novel presentation of neutral or positive objects.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2022
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00014069
- Subject Headings
- Emotions, Memory, Valence
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- Title
- THE INFLUENCE OF EVENT SEGMENTATION ON MEMORY FOR ACTORS AND THEIR ACTIONS.
- Creator
- Smithwick, Megan S., Kersten, Alan, Florida Atlantic University, Department of Psychology, Charles E. Schmidt College of Science
- Abstract/Description
-
Previous research indicates that event boundaries can hinder or facilitate memory. The present study aimed to examine the influence of physical context changes (i.e., event boundaries) on the memory for actors and the actions they performed. Undergraduate participants (N=121) from Florida Atlantic University viewed two different video clip set types of actors performing various actions. The continuous context (CC) video set type included four different actors performing actions in the same...
Show morePrevious research indicates that event boundaries can hinder or facilitate memory. The present study aimed to examine the influence of physical context changes (i.e., event boundaries) on the memory for actors and the actions they performed. Undergraduate participants (N=121) from Florida Atlantic University viewed two different video clip set types of actors performing various actions. The continuous context (CC) video set type included four different actors performing actions in the same physical context. The discontinuous context (DC) video set type contained four actors, the first, second, and fourth actors shown in each set performed actions in the same physical context (e.g., a library), while the third actor in the set performed an action in a different physical context (e.g., a playground). After viewing the videos, memory for the actors and the actions was evaluated using the Person-Action-Conjunction (PAC) test in a retrieval session. Participants provided significantly more ‘yes’ responses to old item than to conjunction items at retrieval. No significant differences in the proportion of ‘yes’ were found between the CC video items and DC video items. These results could be due to the manipulation of physical context not being sufficiently strong to influence event segmentation.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2021
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00013866
- Subject Headings
- Memory, Memory--Research
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- Title
- Emotional Reactions to Stationary and Moving Animals.
- Creator
- St. Peter, Krystal S., Kersten, Alan, Florida Atlantic University, Charles E. Schmidt College of Science, Department of Psychology
- Abstract/Description
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Appraisal theory posits that the addition of new, relevant, information can alter the outcome of the appraisal process for a given emotional elicitor, such as an animal. The current study aimed to explore whether the addition of animal movement would sufficiently influence the intensity of emotional reactions and action motivation ratings for animals. The current study compared self-reported emotional reactions and self-reported action motivations for still images and videos for six animal...
Show moreAppraisal theory posits that the addition of new, relevant, information can alter the outcome of the appraisal process for a given emotional elicitor, such as an animal. The current study aimed to explore whether the addition of animal movement would sufficiently influence the intensity of emotional reactions and action motivation ratings for animals. The current study compared self-reported emotional reactions and self-reported action motivations for still images and videos for six animal categories (snakes, spiders, cockroaches, tortoises, deer, and ducks). Our findings indicate that movement increases the intensity of relevant emotional reactions to cockroaches, tortoises, deer, and ducks, but not snakes or spiders. Action motivation ratings indicate that movement increases approach motivations for the positively associated animals but does not alter avoidance motivations for the negatively associated animals. The implications for our understanding of the perception of and reactions to animals are discussed.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2019
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00013265
- Subject Headings
- Emotions--Research, Animals, Moving, Stationary
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- Title
- MEMORY FOR TRIVIA FACTS AND SOURCE IDENTITY: EFFECTS OF EMOTION AND SOURCE CHARACTERISTICS.
- Creator
- St. Peter, Krystal S., Kersten, Alan, Florida Atlantic University, Department of Psychology, Charles E. Schmidt College of Science
- Abstract/Description
-
Individuals are constantly being exposed to new information and new situations, but memory for these events is not always equal; understanding the factors that affect an individual’s ability to remember the details surrounding these events is extremely important. The purpose of the current study was to examine the potential effects of emotion and source characteristics, such as age and gender, on memory for factual information (i.e., trivia facts) and source identity (i.e., the sources of the...
Show moreIndividuals are constantly being exposed to new information and new situations, but memory for these events is not always equal; understanding the factors that affect an individual’s ability to remember the details surrounding these events is extremely important. The purpose of the current study was to examine the potential effects of emotion and source characteristics, such as age and gender, on memory for factual information (i.e., trivia facts) and source identity (i.e., the sources of the information). One hundred and twenty-eight undergraduate students viewed a total of 120 videos depicting eight different sources (two young adult males, two young adult females, two older adult males, and two older adult females) presenting neutral and emotional (positive, negative) trivia facts; participants were then asked to complete a fill-in-thevi blank test on memory for trivia facts and a multiple-choice test on memory for the source of each fact. Results indicated that positively valenced trivia facts were remembered more often than both neutral and negatively valenced facts; emotion was not found to affect memory for the sources of trivia facts or memory for the relationship between trivia fact and source. Results indicated that trivia facts presented by female sources were remembered better than facts presented by male sources; source gender also affected memory for the sources of each fact, such that sources of facts presented by females were remembered better than the source identity for a fact presented by a male source. When the identity of the source was forgotten, participants were more likely to falsely attribute the fact to someone of the same age as the original source. If the original source was female, participants were also more likely to falsely attribute that fact to another female source compared to a male source, but if the original source was male, participants were equally likely to misattribute the source of either gender. The findings from the current study add to the current understanding of the complex effects of emotion on memory and suggest the importance
Show less - Date Issued
- 2021
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00013739
- Subject Headings
- Memory, Emotion
- Format
- Document (PDF)