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The purpose of this research is to determine mathematics teacher candidates' conceptual structures about the concept of "measurement" that is the one of the important learning fields of mathematics. Qualitative research method was used in this study. Participants of this study were 58 mathematics teacher candidates studying in one of the public universities in Turkey. The free word-association test was used as data collection tool. The "Measurement" stimulus concept was presented to mathematics teacher candidates through the free word-association test. A total of 118 response words obtained from the test have been arranged in frequency tables. The response words divided into 9 categories with the help of content analysis. A network of concepts has been created that the conceptual structures of mathematics teacher candidates about "measurement" using the frequencies and categories of response words. The findings of this study indicates that the response words with the highest frequency of the mathematics teacher candidates related to the "measurement" stimulus word are evaluation, exam, length, meter, test, etc. and the categories of response words are meaning of measurement, measurement and evaluation lesson, measurement learning domain, measurement in daily life, measurement units, etc.

Despite its name, associative recognition is a paradigm thought to rely on memory recall. However, it remains unclear how associative information may be represented and retrieved from memory and what its relationship to other information, such as item memory, is. Here, we propose a computational model of associative recognition, where relational information is accessed in a generic, multistage retrieval process. The model explains the relative difficulty of associative recognition compared with item recognition, the difference in experimental outcomes when different types of lures are used, as well as the conditions leading to the emergence of associative ROC curves with different shapes.

We examined the contribution of rapid automatized naming (RAN) components (articulation time, pause time, and pause time consistency) to reading fluency, reading comprehension, and spelling in a sample of 257 German children (139 boys, 118 girls; M[subscript age] = 5.60 years, SD = 0.31) followed from kindergarten to Grade 1. In kindergarten, children were assessed on measures of RAN (colors and objects), phonological awareness, letter-sound knowledge, phonological short-term memory, and paired-associate learning. Reading fluency, reading comprehension, and spelling were assessed at the end of Grade 1. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that pause time and pause time consistency continued to predict reading fluency, but not reading comprehension or spelling, after controlling for the effects of the other cognitive skills assessed in kindergarten. Articulation time did not add to the prediction of any literacy skills. These findings support previous research suggesting that, during the early phases of learning to read, pause time holds the key in the relation between RAN and reading fluency.

Adaptive behavior is characterized by our ability to create, maintain, and update (or switch) rules by which we categorize and respond to stimuli across changing contexts ("cognitive flexibility"). Recent research suggests that people can link the control process of task-switching to contextual cues through associative learning, whereby the behavioral cost of switching is reduced for contexts that require frequent switching. One example is the listwide proportion switch (LWPS) effect, denoting smaller switch costs in blocks of trials where switching is more frequent. However, the conditions that govern such "learned cognitive flexibility" are poorly understood. One major unanswered question is whether this type of learning benefits from memory consolidation effects. To address this question, we manipulated whether task-sets and/or specific task stimuli were more frequently linked with task-switching (vs. repeating), and ran participants over two experimental sessions, separated by a 24-hr delay. We expected that consolidation would facilitate learned cognitive flexibility, resulting in a greater reduction of switch costs with increasing task-switch likelihood on Session 2 compared with Session 1. Across two experiments, we observed robust LWPS effects in both sessions. However, we found little evidence for effects of consolidation on learned cognitive flexibility: The magnitude of the LWPS effect did not change from Session 1 to 2. Altogether our results suggest that people reliably and quickly acquire task-set and stimulus-based switch associations, but this form of control learning--unlike many instances of reward-based learning--does not benefit from long-term memory consolidation. Possible reasons for these findings are discussed.

Atypical learning and memory in early life can promote atypical behaviors in later life. Less relational learning and inflexible retrieval in childhood may enhance restricted and repeated behaviors in patients with autism spectrum disorder. The purpose of this study was to elucidate the mechanisms of atypical memory in children with autism spectrum disorder. We conducted picture-name pair learning and delayed-recognition tests with two groups: one group with high-functioning autism spectrum disorder children (aged 7-16, n = 41) and one group with typically developing children (n = 82) that matched the first group's age, sex, and IQ. We assessed correlations between successful recognition scores and seed-to-whole-brain resting-state functional connectivity. Although both learning and retrieval performances were comparable between the two groups, we observed slightly lower category learning and significantly fewer memory gains in the autism spectrum disorder group than in the typically developing group. The right canonical anterior hippocampal network was involved in successful memory in youths with typically developing, while other memory systems may be involved in successful memory in youths with autism spectrum disorder. Context-independent and less relational memory processing may be associated with fewer memory gains in autism spectrum disorder. These atypical memory characteristics in autism spectrum disorder may accentuate their inflexible behaviors in some situations.

Temporal association learning (TAL) allows for the linkage of distinct, nonsynchronous events across a period of time. This function is driven by neural interactions in the entorhinal cortical-hippocampal network, especially the neural input from the pyramidal cells in layer III of medial entorhinal cortex (MECIII) to hippocampal CA1 is crucial for TAL. Successful TAL depends on the strength of event stimuli and the duration of the temporal gap between events. Whereas it has been demonstrated that the neural input from pyramidal cells in layer II of MEC, referred to as Island cells, to inhibitory neurons in dorsal hippocampal CA1 controls TAL when the strength of event stimuli is weak, it remains unknown whether Island cells regulate TAL with long trace periods as well. To understand the role of Island cells in regulating the duration of the learnable trace period in TAL, we used Pavlovian trace fear conditioning (TFC) with a 60-sec long trace period (long trace fear conditioning [L-TFC]) coupled with optogenetic and chemogenetic neural activity manipulations as well as cell type-specific neural ablation. We found that ablation of Island cells in MECII partially increases L-TFC performance. Chemogenetic manipulation of Island cells causes differential effectiveness in Island cell activity and leads to a circuit imbalance that disrupts L-TFC. However, optogenetic terminal inhibition of Island cell input to dorsal hippocampal CA1 during the temporal association period allows for long trace intervals to be learned in TFC. These results demonstrate that Island cells have a critical role in regulating the duration of time bridgeable between associated events in TAL.

Contextual cueing refers to the guidance of search by associative learning of the location of task-relevant target items in relation to the consistent arrangement of distractor ("context") items in the search display. The present study investigated whether such target-distractor associations could also be formed in a cross-modal search task in which the invariant distractor context is visual and the target is tactile. Each trial display consisted of 8 vibrotactile stimuli delivered to 4 fingers of each hand, with the target singled out by a vibrotactile feature difference relative to the homogeneous nontarget vibrations. In addition, there were 4 visual (Gabor) distractors and 4 empty circles colocated (on a different depth plane) with the vibrotactile stimuli. Crucially, in half of the trials, the location of the tactile target was associated with an identical (repeated) configuration, or "context," of visual distractors. The results revealed facilitated RTs to the tactile targets when they were presented (250 to) 450 ms prior to--but not simultaneously with or after--a repeated visual distractor configuration, demonstrating a novel visuo-tactile contextual-cueing effect. Additional tests indicated that the optimal tactile preview period is broadly in line with the time required to recode the (initially) somatotopically sensed tactile stimuli into an external format shared with the visual items. We propose that, besides divided attention between the 2 modalities, the acquisition of search-guiding cross-modal context associations critically depends on the spatiotemporal colocation of the visuo-tactile stimuli.

It has long been understood that associations can form between items that are paired (Ebbinghaus, 1885), but it is commonly assumed that previously retrieved items are not used when remembering items in serial order. We present a series of experiments that test this assumption, using a serial learning procedure inspired by Ebenholtz (1963). In this procedure, participants practiced recalling ordered lists of letters, and the order of the letters was manipulated. Half of the lists were scrambled such that the serial positions and relative positions of the letters were inconsistent over practice. The other half of the lists were spun (e.g., ABCDEF [right arrow] FABCDE), making the serial positions inconsistent but preserving the relative positions of the letters over practice. In Experiment 1, participants learned to recall spun lists more accurately than the scrambled lists with practice. In Experiments 2 and 3, participants recalled new lists more accurately when they shared the relative order of previously learned spun lists. In Experiments 4 and 5, the influences of motor and perceptual representations were removed and shown to have little impact on the advantage for spun lists. Experiment 6 extended our findings to the more traditional Hebb (1961) learning procedure. The results of our experiments indicate that the commonly held assumption is incorrect--previously retrieved items can contribute to memory for serial order. Previously retrieved items best serve serial memory when there is ample opportunity to strengthen item-to-item associations.

In the present research, we provide empirical evidence for the process of symbolic integration of number associations, focusing on the development of simple addition (e.g., 5 + 3 = 8), subtraction (e.g., 5 - 3 = 2), and multiplication (e.g., 5 × 3 = 15). Canadian children were assessed twice, in Grade 2 and Grade 3 (N = 244; 55% girls). All families were English-speaking, and parent education levels ranged from high school to postgraduate, with a median of community college. In Grade 2, children completed general cognitive tasks (i.e., receptive vocabulary, working memory, nonverbal reasoning, and inhibitory control). In both grades, children completed single-digit addition and complementary subtraction problems. In Grade 3, they completed single-digit multiplication problems and measures of applied mathematics, specifically, word-problem solving, algebra, and measurement. We found that addition and subtraction were reciprocally related (controlling for cognitive skills). Subtraction fluency predicted multiplication in Grade 3, whereas addition fluency did not. In Grade 3, both subtraction and multiplication fluency were predictors of applied mathematics, with multiplication partially mediating the relation between subtraction and applied mathematics performance. These findings support the view that learning arithmetic associations is a hierarchical process. As students practice each new skill, individual differences reflect the integration of the novel component into the developing associative network.

Key areas of the episodic memory (EM) network demonstrate changing structure and volume during adolescence. EM is multifaceted and yet studies of EM thus far have largely examined single components, used different methods and have unsurprisingly yielded inconsistent results. The Treasure Hunt task is a single paradigm that allows parallel investigation of memory content, associative structure, and the impact of different retrieval support. Combining the cognitive and neurobiological accounts, we hypothesized that some elements of EM performance may decline in late adolescence owing to considerable restructuring of the hippocampus at this time. Using the Treasure Hunt task, we examined EM performance in 80 participants aged 10-17 yr. Results demonstrated a cubic trajectory with youngest and oldest participants performing worst. This was emphasized in associative memory, which aligns well with existing literature indicating hippocampal restructuring in later adolescence. It is proposed that memory development may follow a nonlinear path as children approach adulthood, but that future work is required to confirm and extend the trends demonstrated in this study.

The aim of this study is to investigate the cognitive structures of physics teacher candidates about "electric field." Phenomenographic research method, one of the qualitative research patterns, was used in the study. The data of the study was collected from 91 physics teacher candidates who had taken General Physics II course at Education Faculty of a university in Anatolia. The stimulus word, "electric field" has been presented to teacher candidates through Free Word Association Test (FWAT). The totally 43 responses obtained from FWAT were presented as frequency tables. The responses were divided into 13 categories by the content analysis. A concept network which reveals cognitive structure of physics teacher candidates about "electric field" was created considering frequencies and categories. According to results of the study, the highest frequency values related with "electric field" which stimulus of physics teacher candidates were power, charge, vector/vectoral quantity, current, magnet, etc. and the categories with the highest frequency of response words were figured out as electrical force, electric charge, magnetic field and magnitude of electric field, etc.

Early language learning for children is increasingly common, and the majority of parents and the public do not see it as superfluous or overburdening children. Moreover, teaching a foreign language to very young children has been an increasingly dominant trend in most globalized societies. While there is abundant literature that supports teaching a foreign language at an early age through language immersion programs, little is known about the efficiency of strategies used to explicitly teach new vocabulary words in a foreign language to young learners. This empirical investigation aimed to assess and compare the efficiency of two mnemonics that have been traditionally used to explicitly teach new foreign language words: the Keyword Method (KWM) and the Total Physical Response (TPR). Results indicate that the KWM is more effective than TPR in teaching new vocabulary words in a foreign language to early elementary school children.

The objective of this study is to determining the change in secondary school students' cognitive structure related to the concepts of environmental problems. There were 21th grades students of two middle schools in Kirsehir. In this research, the students participated in outdoor activities on environmental education programmes during 5 weekends consecutively. The data of the research were collected via word association test as pre-test and post-test. The conceptual change process was examined in collected data, and their pre-test and post-test results were analysed by using cut-off point. Conceptual network was constituted by using cut-off points. When pre-test and post-test results were compared, it was found that there is a positive shift in students' conceptual change. In addition, when their concept network was examined, it was observed that there is an upturn in the number of answered words in post-test. However, the numbers of the words associated to the keywords in pre-test were limited. Besides, the connections not provided among the concepts in pre-test emerged in post-test which shows that students' independent knowledge related to the keywords is associated in the post-test. Finally, when pre-test and post-test are compared, both are the increased in response words and emergence of the connection shows that qualitative change accompanies to quantitative change. Furthermore, keywords emerged in upper tabs out of post-test results. This specifies that the out-of school activities is successful in creating conceptual structure.

The purpose of this study is to determine perceptions of elementary prospective teachers about the basic concepts of physics including force, motion, speed, velocity, acceleration and displacement. This research, as a qualitative study, had a study group that constitutes of 35 elementary prospective teachers who successfully completed general physics courses. A word association test was used as the data collection tool. In the word association test, elementary prospective teachers were asked to write down the first five words/concepts they thought of regarding the concepts of "force", "motion", "speed", "velocity", "acceleration" and "displacement" in the first stage, in the second stage they have been asked to write the sentences regarding these concepts. A frequency table was formed with the words/concepts that the prospective teachers associated with the key concepts, cutoff points were determined based on these data, and conceptual networks that reflected their perceptions were drawn. Prospective teachers' sentences for key concepts were analyzed by using content analysis method. The findings showed that the participants associated the key concepts mostly with the concepts of distance, time, velocity, force, energy, motion, friction, power, car, physics, displacement, acceleration and speed. Additionally, it was observed that a significant part of the sentences formed by the participants was scientifically acceptable, while the participants also formed similar sentences that contained emotional and unscientific expressions.

This paper examines possible psycholinguistic mechanisms governing stem vowel changes of irregular verbs in intermediate English learners of German as a foreign language (GFL). In Experiment 1, nonce-infinitives embedded in an authentic fictional text had to be inflected for German preterite, thus testing possible analogy-driven pattern associations. Experiment 2 explored the psycholinguistic reality of the so-called apophonic path by prompting two inflections for one given nonce-word. Data were analyzed using generalized mixed effects models accounting for within-subject as well as within-item variance. The results of Experiment 1 and 2 support the notion of a pattern associator and yield only scarce evidence for the psycholinguistic reality of a universal apophonic path. Therefore, the organization of irregular verb morphology in the mental lexicon of intermediate GFL learners might best be captured by the linguistic notion of structured lexical entries as well as the psycholinguistic mechanism of an analogy-based pattern associator.

Word is one of the most important components of a natural language. Speech is meaningful because of the meanings of words. Vocabulary acquired in one's mother tongue is learned consciously in a foreign language in non-native settings. Learning vocabulary in a system based on grammar is generally neglected or learned in conventional ways. This study is to determine the efficiency of teaching vocabulary from learning speed and retention perspective through means of phonetic association, whose examples are seldom seen in educational institutions. The study's sample consists of Turkish 5th graders at three junior high schools who have just begun to learn English. Sixty-six students, 37 girls and 29 boys from three socio-economically normal state schools. Thirty three students formed the experimental group while the other 33 students constituted the control group in the empirical study. "A phonetic association vocabulary test" consisting of 25 English words, mostly verbs and nouns, was designed. This test containing English words, their pronunciation and homophonous Turkish words was administered to the experimental group, knowing that vocabulary is taught by means of phonetic association. The control group was unaware of the method, and received the conventional teaching method. The control group was given a test containing only English words. The data obtained were decrypted by descriptive and content analysis. The study's results revealed that words were learned faster and learning was retentive by the phonetic association method. In particular, recall of the words learned differentiates this method from conventional vocabulary learning methods.

The objective of this study is to determine the cognitive structures of the students of geography teaching department by identifying their conceptual frameworks about the concept of earthquake. A case study design from qualitative research approaches was used in this research. Sample group of the study constitutes 155 students from the Department of Geography Teaching who took the course of natural disasters. Free Word Association Test was used to collect the data. The data were evaluated according to the content analysis, categories were formed according to the results of this evaluation and frequencies and percentages of the response words in each category were calculated. A total of 9 categories were created according to their semantic associations. Some of them are; "concepts about earthquake, damages of the earthquake, a category of defining earthquake, types and causes of earthquakes, landforms caused by earthquakes and other effects" and they form the dominant categories. The frequencies and percentages of some categories are low such as; "The things that earthquake makes feel, regions where earthquakes happened before or there is a possibility to happen, people, institutions and organizations about earthquakes, helping to the victims of the earthquakes, factors affecting the safety of life and property in the earthquake." In addition, this study revealed that students have some alternative concepts about earthquake.

The learned predictiveness effect or LPE is the finding that when people learn that certain cues are reliable predictors of an outcome in an initial stage of training (phase 1), they exhibit a learning bias in favor of these cues in a subsequent training involving new outcomes (phase 2) despite all cues being equally reliable in phase 2. In Experiment 1, we replicate the basic effect and found that the addition of a secondary memory task during phase 2 had no reliable influence on the LPE. In Experiment 2, we demonstrated that the same secondary task can either facilitate or disrupt the LPE, depending on whether the outcomes of phase 1 were affectively congruent or incongruent with the outcomes of phase 2. These findings are discussed in relationship to associative and inferential accounts of LPE.

The purpose of this study is to observe prospective teachers' cognitive structures related to Turkish World. In this scanning model study, WAT (Word Association Test) had been applied to 332 prospective teachers in Nigde Ömer Halisdemir University. And they were asked to write what comes into their heads when it is said Turkish Republics and Turkish World. Words were given to the prospective teachers. According to the research, "Turk" is the only common Word which is related to the concept of six independent Turkish Republics and Turkish World. There is no any other common word except this, perceived by prospective teachers. Students generally independent Turkish Republic and Turkey they do not have a lot of information and perceptions about the world; they know the general concept of popular culture, it said they did not know specific concepts or people belonging to the country. Independent of the Turkish states K.K.T.C. It has become the most irrelevant and disconnected with other countries. K.K.T.C. with the only common link between other countries "Turkey" was the word. Students are most perceptive grasp of Azerbaijan, while country-owned; they have been gripping the country at least perceptually Uzbekistan. [This article was presented at the 3rd International Dynamic, Exploratory and Active Learning Conference (IDEAL 2016).]

The aim of this study is to examine pre-service mathematics teachers' conceptual structures about "geometry". Qualitative research methodology has been adopted in the study. The data of the study is obtained from mathematics teacher candidates who have been students at the faculties of education of an Anatolian university in the academic year of 2015-2016. The free word association test was used to collect the data. The "geometry" stimulus word is presented to participants by the word association test. A total of 65 response words obtained from the test have been arranged in frequency tables. The answer words were divided into 13 categories with the help of content analysis. Considering the frequencies and categories of answer words, a network of concepts has been developed that outlines the conceptual structures of pre-service mathematics teacher about "geometry". At the end of the research, the answer words with the highest frequency of the mathematics teacher candidates related to the "geometry" stimulus word are triangle, angle, area, polygon, etc. and the categories of answer words are triangle, quadrilateral/polygon, basic concepts of geometry, measurement, etc.

In conditioned odor aversion (COA), the association of a tasteless odorized solution (the conditioned stimulus [CS]) with an intraperitoneal injection of LiCl (the unconditioned stimulus [US]), which produces visceral malaise, results in its future avoidance. The strength of this associative memory is mainly dependent on two parameters, that is, the strength of the US and the interstimuli interval (ISI). In rats, COA has been observed only with ISIs of [less than or equal to] 15 min and LiCl (0.15 M) doses of 2.0% of bodyweight, when tested 48 h after acquisition (long-term memory [LTM]). However, we previously reported a robust aversion in rats trained with ISIs up to 60 min when tested 4 h after acquisition (short-term memory [STM]). Since memories get reactivated during retrieval, in the current study we hypothesized that testing for STM would reactivate this COA trace, strengthening its LTM. For this, we compared the LTM of rats trained with long ISIs or low doses of LiCl initially tested for STM with that of rats tested for LTM only. Interestingly, rats conditioned under parameters sufficient to produce STM, but not LTM, showed a reliable LTM when first tested for STM. These observations suggest that under suboptimal training conditions, such as long ISIs or low US intensities, a CS-US association is established but requires reactivation in the short-term in order to persist in the long-term.

Association questions (AQs) are a novel form of multiple-choice questions (MCQs). To answer an AQ, learners must recall the concepts denoted by the given terms, affirm their connections, and then select the term with a denotation that is "less connected" with other concepts. This research hypothesizes that the use of AQ tests for reviewing course contents can significantly help learners to assimilate and/or accommodate what was covered in class and to store the resulting cognitive structures in long-term memory (LTM). To test this hypothesis, an educational experiment was conducted. The results showed that the use of optional online AQ tests for reviewing course contents helped with knowledge retention and was especially suitable for learners with medium levels of initial knowledge. AQs are easy to answer and grade. Therefore, it should be worthwhile to use AQ tests for formative assessment whenever AQs can be designed to help learners better understand course contents.

Purpose: Complex features of science texts present idiosyncratic challenges for middle grade readers, especially in a post-Common Core educational world where students' learning is dependent on understanding informational text. The primary aim of this study was to explore how middle school readers process science texts and whether such comprehension processes differed due to features of complexity in two science texts. Method: Thirty 7th grade students read two science texts with different profiles of text complexity in a think-aloud task. Think-aloud protocols were coded for six comprehension processes: connecting inferences, elaborative inferences, evaluative comments, metacognitive comments, and associations. We analyzed the quantity and type of comprehension processes generated across both texts in order to explore how features of text complexity contributed to the comprehension processes students produced while reading. Results: Students made significantly more elaborative and connecting inferences when reading a text with deep cohesion, simple syntax, and concrete words, while students made more evaluative comments, paraphrases, and metacognitive comments when reading a text with referential cohesion, complex syntax, and abstract words. Conclusions: The current study provides exploratory evidence for features of text complexity affecting the type of comprehension processes middle school readers generate while reading science texts. Accordingly, science classroom texts and materials can be evaluated for word, sentence, and passage features of text complexity in order to encourage deep level comprehension of middle school readers.

Four experiments examined the effects of a dangerous context and a systemic epinephrine injection on sensory preconditioning in rats. In each experiment, rats were exposed to presentations of a tone and light in stage 1, light-shock pairings in stage 2, and test presentations of the tone alone and light alone in stage 3. Presentations of the tone and light in stage 1 occurred in either a safe or a previously shocked context, and/or under a systemic injection of epinephrine. Experiment 1 showed that a trace interval of 20 sec between presentations of the tone and light produced sensory preconditioning of the tone in a previously shocked context but not in a safe context, while experiment 2 provided evidence that this trace preconditioning was associative, due to the formation of a tone-light association. Experiment 3 showed that, in a safe context, exposure to the trace protocol under the influence of an epinephrine injection also produced sensory preconditioning of the tone, while experiment 4 provided evidence that a shocked context and an epinephrine injection have additive effects on trace preconditioning. These findings are discussed in relation to theories of trace conditioning. They suggest that the release of epinephrine by danger enhances attention and/or working memory processes, and thereby associative formation across a trace interval.

Few studies have compared interference-based forgetting between item versus associative memory. The memory-system dependent forgetting hypothesis (Hardt, Nader, & Nadel, 2013) predicts that effects of interference on associative memory should be minimal because its hippocampal representation allows pattern separation even of highly similar information. In contrast, there should be strong interference effects on extra-hippocampally represented item memory. We tested this prediction in behavioral data from 3 experiments using continuous recognition paradigms. Given older adults' greater deficits in associative than item memory, we also compared younger and older adults to test whether this associative deficit extends to greater interference susceptibility in older adults' associative memory. Experiment 1 examined item-item associative memory with participants studying unrelated word pairs continuously intermixed with item (single words) and associative (intact vs. recombined pairs) recognition tests across interference-filled lags. Experiments 2 and 3 examined item-context (i.e., source) associative memory with participants studying words in different spatial positions continuously intermixed with source-monitoring tests (presented on top vs. on bottom vs. new?) across interference-filled lags (Experiment 3 controlling for delay/decay-based effects). In all experiments, item memory declined from the first lag on. In contrast, associative memory initially remained stable, with strong evidence for null effects of interference even in older adults, but showed some declines at later lags. The data supports Hardt et al.'s proposal of differential interference-based forgetting in item versus associative memory. The results further show that the age-related associative memory deficit does not extend to greater interference-based forgetting in older adults' associative memory.

Children with developmental language disorder (DLD) have significant deficits in language ability that cannot be attributed to neurological damage, hearing impairment, or intellectual disability. The symptoms displayed by children with DLD differ across languages. In English, DLD is often marked by severe difficulties acquiring verb inflection. Such difficulties are less apparent in languages with rich verb morphology like Spanish and Italian. Here we show how these differential profiles can be understood in terms of an interaction between properties of the input language, and the child's ability to learn predictive relations between linguistic elements that are separated within a sentence. We apply a simple associative learning model to sequential English and Spanish stimuli and show how the model's ability to associate cues occurring earlier in time with later outcomes affects the acquisition of verb inflection in English more than in Spanish. We relate this to the high frequency of the English bare form (which acts as a default) and the English process of question formation, which means that (unlike in Spanish) bare forms frequently occur in third-person singular contexts. Finally, we hypothesize that the pro-drop nature of Spanish makes it easier to associate person and number cues with the verb inflection than in English. Since the factors that conspire to make English verb inflection particularly challenging for learners with weak sequential learning abilities are much reduced or absent in Spanish, this provides an explanation for why learning Spanish verb inflection is relatively unaffected in children with DLD.

Just Face It presents seven "faces" codified by Paul Ekman, Wallace Friesen and Joseph Hager, which can be linked through a kinesthetic process of association with vocabulary words that are frequently encountered on standardized college admission tests. The article is based on "Method for Facilitating Contextual Vocabulary Acquisition through Association," which was issued U.S. Patent 10, 373,516 in 2019.

This study investigated the effects of individual word frequency, collocational frequency, and association on L1 and L2 collocational processing. An acceptability judgment task was administered to L1 and L2 speakers of English. Response times were analyzed using mixed-effects modeling for 3 types of adjective-noun pairs: (a) high-frequency, (b) low-frequency, and (c) baseline items. This study extends previous research by examining whether the effects of individual word and collocation frequency counts differ for L1 and L2 speakers' processing of collocations. This study also compared the extent to which L1 and L2 speakers' response times are affected by mutual information and log Dice scores, which are corpus-derived association measures. Both groups of participants demonstrated sensitivity to individual word and collocation frequency counts. However, there was a reduced effect of individual word frequency counts for processing high-frequency collocations compared to low-frequency collocations. Both groups of participants were similarly sensitive to the association measures used.

The present study evaluates the updating of long-term memory for duration. After learning a temporal discrimination associating one lever with a standard duration (4 sec) and another lever with both a shorter (1-sec) and a longer (16-sec) duration, rats underwent a single session for learning a new standard duration. The temporal generalization gradient obtained 24 h later showed a modification in long-term memory for durations longer than the standard but only when the new duration was longer than the one initially learned. The effect was confirmed for another set of durations (0.5-2-8 sec). Our study demonstrates asymmetry in updating long-term memory for time.

This archival data study examined the relations between cognitive abilities and math reasoning for Hispanic English learner (EL) students in grades 1 through 5 with an identified learning disability. The 295 student participants were referred for an initial psycho-educational Spanish or English evaluation due to academic concerns by their school staff or by their parents. The results were analyzed using multiple regressions for their contribution to math reasoning ability. For students assessed in English, the best predictors for Math Reasoning were Lexical Knowledge (VL), General Sequential Reasoning (RG) Perceptual Speed 1 (P), Ideational Fluency (FI). For students assessed in Spanish, the best predictors for Math Reasoning were Lexical Knowledge (VL), Associative Memory (MA), Memory Span (MS), and Phonetic Coding (PC). By understanding the significant cognitive predictors for each group, educators can more effectively plan instruction to meet the needs of these students.

This article explores the written reflections and multimodal analyses of 31 middle school students who engaged with video games as texts. For four consecutive days, students spent 30 minutes playing video games and then 30 minutes writing reflections on their experiences and perceptions, resulting in 124 total reflections. Students focused on how they interpreted multimodal symbols within video games to comprehend, learn, and make decisions during gameplay. Students' analyses were informed by the Gamer Response and Decision (GRAD) Framework. Results demonstrate that students identified various ways that multimodal symbols, such as dynamic visuals, written language, oral language, and sounds, impacted their interpretations and decision making within the game. This study demonstrates how students can engage in valuable reflective writing and multimodal analysis activities using video games as texts, such as through exploring communicative modes in video games and reflecting on associated learning and decision-making processes.

Associative learning strategy (ALS) is an important means of acquiring vocabulary--especially in L2 learning. This study proposes a method to identify the associative learning mechanism based on complex network theory. First, a distributed association strategy (DAS) for the associative learning of L2 learners based on distributed language learning is analyzed, and a dynamic vocabulary network model based on DAS is constructed. Second, by analyzing the topological parameters, the external form and overall characteristics of the vocabulary network and three questions regarding its impact on vocabulary acquisition are discussed. A case study involving the foreign language learning and teaching of undergraduate students is used to illustrate this method. The results show that the proposed method can effectively reflect the associative learning process of acquiring vocabulary. Results also reveal the dynamic and evolutionary laws governing vocabulary networks when using ALS, as well as small world and scale-free characteristics.

This study reports on the findings of a questionnaire administered to 93 students studying Japanese as a foreign language (JFL) at British universities, focusing on their views of the role of grammar in their learning of Japanese. Learners' views are important because mismatches with their teachers' views can affect their learning negatively. Following previous studies, the learners in this study, who were at upper-beginner to lower-intermediate levels, valued formal instruction and wanted teachers to give detailed explanations on grammar. In particular, their views suggested that they seek greater understanding of the semantic and pragmatic features of new grammatical structures. We suggest that particularly in the case of a 'less familiar' language such as Japanese, anglophone learners can benefit from a 'focus on forms' approach that incorporates different learning processes such as pattern recognition and making associations, alongside a 'focus on form' approach that assists their understanding of how the target grammatical structures are used in context.

The ability to learn from expectations is foundational to social and nonsocial learning in children. However, we know little about the brain basis of reward expectation in development. Here, 3- to 4-year-olds (N = 26) were shown a passive associative learning paradigm with dynamic stimuli. Anticipation for reward-related stimuli was measured via the stimulus preceding negativity (SPN). To our knowledge, this is the first study to measure an SPN in children younger than age 6. Our findings reveal distinct anticipatory neural signatures for social versus nonsocial stimuli, consistent with previous research in older children. This study suggests an SPN can be elicited in preschoolers and is larger for social than nonsocial stimuli.

Remote association requires players to use their mental transformation to identify objects' relationships by activating knowledge application. A Chinese Remote Association game was designed (example question: [characters omitted], where the answer is [character omitted]) to explore learners' cognitive and affective effects, and then eighth grade students were invited to play using their smartphones. Data were collected for confirmatory factor analysis with structural equation modeling. The results revealed that intrinsic cognitive load was negatively related to flow experience, while gameplay interest was positively related to flow experience, and flow experience was positively related to performance progress in Chinese association. The implication of this study is that using remote Chinese association as an application game can enhance players' flow experience and performance.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the bibliometric analysis of number sense studies over the past 30 years and monitor the trend regarding the nomological network accordingly. All the published articles in Web of Science database, containing the term number sense between 1990 and 2019, constituted the focus of the study. In the analysis of 448 articles, the distance-based bibliometric maps and the clusters were created by VOSviewer so that they provide information about the existence of nomological networks and the occurrence of the number sense-related concepts. The results of the study indicated that the terms of number sense-related studies were clustered in four groups depending on the degree of the relationships among them. The groups were identified as recognition of number sense to define clearly (recognition), evaluating the number sense to support (evaluation), associating the number sense with other skills and abilities to increase the success (association) and promoting number sense to improve instruction (promotion). This study put forth evidence to list the interrelated terms, to show the close relationship among the terms, to emphasize the diversity, to reveal the intertwining and to show the richness of number sense.

The study of word-to-text integration (WTI) provides a window on incremental processes that link the meaning of a word to the preceding text. We review a research program using event-related potential indicators of WTI at sentence beginnings, thus localizing sources of integration to prior text meaning independently of the current sentence. The results led to the following conclusions. First, integration occurs when the word being read cues the retrieval of a text meaning from memory. Second, when the word does not cue retrieval, new structure building rather than integration is the default at sentence beginnings. Third, integration depends on a highly accessible text memory. The immediate preceding sentence provides the primary source for integration; however, instructions that encourage attention to thematic elements enable influences of global text meaning. Finally, contrary to the role that prediction may play in comprehension generally, prediction has a limited role in WTI at sentence beginnings.

Two lines of evidence emerged in the past suggesting that lexical form seemed to play a more important role in the organization of the second language (L2) mental lexicon than in that of the first language (L1) lexicon. They were masked orthographic priming in L2 word recognition and an elevated proportion of form-related responses in L2 word association. However, findings from previous word association studies were inconsistent regarding (1) how often L2 speakers produced form-related responses (flood-blood) and (2) whether L2 speakers were more likely than L1 speakers to provide such responses. Attributing this inconsistency to two methodological causes, the classification of form-related responses and the selection of stimuli, the present study adopted an improved approach by quantifying the definition of form-related responses and by selecting stimuli that had both strong semantic associates and orthographically similar words as potential responses. The latter improvement helped remove the bias for producing either meaning-based or form-based responses. A group of 30 English native speakers and two groups of 65 non-native speakers were tested on the same set of stimuli of 74 English words. Three findings were obtained: (1) non-native speakers produced significantly more form-related responses than native speakers, (2) the two non-native speaker group who differed in L2 experiences showed comparable results, and (3) the participants' familiarity with the stimuli and the lexical frequency of the stimuli negatively correlated with the proportion of form-related responses among non-native speakers. These results provided more compelling evidence for form prominence in the L2 lexicon.

During the first ten postnatal days (P), infant rodents can learn olfactory preferences for novel odors if they are paired with thermo-tactile stimuli that mimic components of maternal care. After P10, the thermo-tactile pairing becomes ineffective for conditioning. The current explanation for this change in associative learning is the alteration in the norepinephrine (NE) inputs from the locus coeruleus (LC) to the olfactory bulb (OB) and the anterior piriform cortex (aPC). By combining patch-clamp electrophysiology and computational simulations, we showed in a recent work that a transitory high responsiveness of the OB-aPC circuit to the maternal odor is an alternative mechanism that could also explain early olfactory preference learning and its cessation after P10. That result relied solely on the maturational properties of the aPC pyramidal cells. However, the GABAergic system undergoes important changes during the same period. To address the importance of the maturation of the GABAergic system for early olfactory learning, we incorporated data from the GABA inputs, obtained from in vitro patch-clamp experiment in the aPC of rat pups aged P5-P7 reported here, to the model proposed in our previous publication. In the younger than P10 OB-aPC circuit with GABA synaptic input, the number of responsive aPC pyramidal cells to the conditioned maternal odor was amplified in 30% compared to the circuit without GABAergic input. When compared with the circuit with other younger than P10 OB-aPC circuit with adult GABAergic input profile, this amplification was 88%. Together, our results suggest that during the olfactory preference learning in younger than P10, the GABAergic synaptic input presumably acts by depolarizing the aPC pyramidal neurons in such a way that it leads to the amplification of the pyramidal neurons response to the conditioned maternal odor. Furthermore, our results suggest that during this developmental period, the aPC pyramidal cells themselves seem to resolve the apparent lack of GABAergic synaptic inhibition by a strong firing adaptation in response to increased depolarizing inputs.

Does serial learning result in specific associations between pairs of items, or does it result in a cognitive map based on relations of all items? In 2 experiments, we trained human participants to learn various lists of photographic images. We then tested the participants on new lists of photographic images. These new lists were constructed by selecting only 1 image from each list learned during training. In Experiment 1, participants were trained to choose the earlier (experimenter defined) item when presented with adjacent pairs of items on each of 5 different 5-item lists. Participants were then tested on derived lists, in which each item retained its original ordinal position, even though each of the presented pairs was novel. Participants performed above chance on all of the derived lists. In Experiment 2, a different group of participants received the same training as those of Experiment 1, but the ordinal positions of items were systematically changed on each derived list. The response accuracy for Experiment 2 varied inversely with the degree to which an item's original ordinal position was changed. These results can be explained by a model in which participants learned to make both positional inferences about the absolute rank of each stimulus, and transitive inferences about the relative ranks of pairs of stimuli. These inferences enhanced response accuracy when ordinal position was maintained, but not when it was changed. Our results demonstrate quantitatively that, in addition to item-item associations that participants acquire while learning a list of arbitrary items, they form a cognitive map that represents both experienced and inferred relationships.

In 2 experiments, eye-tracking was used to examine individual differences in attention during encoding and their relation to associative learning. Pupillary responses were used as an indicator of the amount of attention devoted to items, whereas eye fixations provided a means of assessing attentional focus among items within each to-be-remembered word pair. In both experiments, participants performed a paired associates (PA) cued recall task while pupil diameter and eye fixations were simultaneously recorded. Results from Experiment 1 revealed that larger pupillary responses at encoding, as well as more alternating fixations between the Cue and Target items for each word pair (i.e., switches), was associated with increased learning ability. Critically, while Experiment 2 revealed that effective strategy use partially accounted for the relationship between pupillary responses and PA recall accuracy, pupillary responses still explained unique variance in PA recall accuracy--a result that held even when controlling for the influence of working memory capacity and long-term memory ability. Collectively, the results suggest attentional abilities at encoding are vital for successful learning.

We examined 3 different network models of representing semantic knowledge (5,018-word directed and undirected step distance networks, and an association-correlation network) to predict lexical priming effects. In Experiment 1, participants made semantic relatedness judgments for word pairs with varying path lengths. Response latencies for judgments followed a quadratic relationship with network path lengths, replicating and extending a recent pattern reported by Kenett, Levi, Anaki, and Faust (2017) for an 800-word association-correlation network in Hebrew. In Experiment 2, participants identified target words in a progressive demasking task, immediately following a briefly presented prime (120 ms). Response latencies to identify the target showed a linear trend for all network path lengths. Importantly, there were statistically significant differences between relatively distant words in the step distance networks, for example, path lengths 4 and beyond, suggesting that association networks can indeed capture distant functional semantic relationships. Additional comparisons with 2 distributional models (LSA and "word2vec") suggested that distributional models also successfully predicted response latencies, although there appear to be fundamental differences in the types of semantic relationships captured by the different models.

The purpose of this study is to present the connections between the concepts in perception and cognitive structures of secondary school 8th grade students for principles of Ataturk. Word association test is used in data collection. The number of the total participants in this research is 190. A frequency table is formed for the data obtained in the research, then obtained frequency data has been analyzed by using inspiration 8.00 program. According to the results of the research; it has been observed that the most repeated words are irreligion, fascism, racism, festival, contemporaneousness, Islam and religion. The data obtained in the result part of the research has been compared with other studies. As the result, it has been determined that the word association test is an measurement tool which is appropriate for learning how the students attribute mean to the concepts.

Through the introduction of different dimensions of vocabulary knowledge, depths and breadth dimensions, various studies attempted to examine numerous effective factors on these dimensions. The present study aimed to show the effects of different vocabulary learning styles through extensive and intensive reading programs on depth and breadth aspects of vocabulary knowledge. To achieve this goal, 45 sophomore undergraduate students of English language teaching and translation in Payam-e-Noor University participated in this study. Initially, in order to homogenize the learners based on their level of language proficiency, Michigan English Placement Test was administered. Then, in order to homogenize the participants, the mean and standard deviation of participants' scores were measured and the number of participants reduced to 35. The ultimate subjects' scores on the reading comprehension items of MEPT show that they are all at the intermediate level of reading ability. Participants were randomly divided into three experimental groups: two groups were in the extensive reading program with different form-focused and meaning-focused tasks as incidental vocabulary learning style. The third group was in the intensive reading program as intentional vocabulary learning style. Participants in these experimental groups read long stories or passages with about 2000 to 4000 words per week with ten goal-oriented words. After 8 weeks, the Word Associates Test (WAT) and Vocabulary Knowledge Scale (VKS) were administered to measure the acquired knowledge of new words and also, determining the effects of various learning styles on different dimensions of vocabulary knowledge. The results of Paired-samples and Independent T-tests revealed that both the incidental and intentional groups developed in the period between the pre- and post-test. Furthermore, the findings indicated that learners' depth and breadth dimensions of their vocabulary knowledge surpassed more in the incidental learning in the form of ER program than in the intentional learning in the form of IR program. Moreover, learners' depth and breadth dimensions of vocabulary knowledge enhanced when they worked with form-focused tasks.

This study examined the effect of the interaction approach on young EFL learners' lexical depth in a private language institute in Talesh, Iran. To achieve this, a Michigan test was administered to 40 EFL learners. Those language learners who met the selection criterion, i.e., performed one standard deviation above and below the mean on the test were divided into two classes (N = 28): group A (N = 14) and group B (N = 14). In both groups, the interaction approach was incorporated into vocabulary instruction. However, the design of the interaction was different in each group. In group A, interactions were mostly between learners. On the other hand, in group B, learners mainly interacted with the teacher. After 18 weeks of instruction, a test of lexical depth, word association tasks (WAT), was administered to both groups. The results of statistical analysis showed that the standard deviation (SD) was almost the same in both groups. However, the mean in group B significantly outperformed group A. A "t" test was used to compare means of test scores between groups. The findings of this study suggest that learner-teacher interaction is a more effective design in the improvement of learners' knowledge of vocabulary depth in comparison with learner-learner interaction.

The aim of this study is to reveal pre-service science teachers' cognitive structures regarding Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics (STEM) and science education. The study group of the study consisted of 192 pre-service science teachers. A Free Word Association Test (WAT) consisting of science, technology, engineering, mathematics and science education concepts and semi-structured interview records were utilised to reveal their opinions regarding these concepts and inter-conceptual relations were used as data collection tools. While the WAT was implemented with all of the pre-service teachers, semi-structured interviews were carried out with only eight of the pre-service science teachers. Using two data collection tools via triangulation, enabled the researchers to obtain similar and varied findings. According to the frequencies, WAT was analysed using the cut-off point (CP) method; hence, concept network maps were composed and interviews were descriptively analysed. The findings of the study revealed that pre-service teachers' cognitive structures involved STEM disciplines and science education were quite independent from each other. Also, they could not make a distinction between science concept and science education concept, nor associate "technology, engineering and mathematics' concepts" with "science and science education" concepts.

Knowledge concerning continuously improving branches of science such as biotechnology in particular is difficult to be understood properly by students, or they learn it incorrectly. One of the most important reasons for this is that students cannot associate in their mind the relevant concepts. The aim of this research is to determine prospective biology teachers' conceptual framework of biotechnology, and thus determining their cognitive structure. The data were collected from 34 prospective biology teachers. Considering the fact that these prospective biology teachers had taken biotechnology course previously, they were selected on the basis of volunteering. Word association test and draw-and-write technique were used in collecting the data. The data obtained were organised on the basis of qualitative content analysis. Then the data were grouped into 7 categories (methods/techniques, biotechnology applications, genetics, other branches of science, organisms, meaning attributed to biotechnology, laboratory) according to word association test, and into 4 categories (methods/techniques, biotechnology applications, genetics, organisms) according to draw-and-write technique. According to the research findings, almost half of the prospective teachers had correct and appropriate associations for biotechnology, whereas a considerable part of them did not have adequate conceptual associations. Also, it was found that prospective teachers had misconceptions about biotechnology.

This paper reports the first investigation in the second language acquisition field assessing learners' implicit attitudes using the Implicit Association Test, a computerized reaction-time measure. Examination of the explicit and implicit attitudes of Arab learners of English (N = 365) showed that, particularly for males, implicit attitudes toward L2 speakers are associated with self-reported openness to the L2 group and with strength of correlations among attitudinal and motivational variables. Implicit attitudes also moderated important paths in the L2 Motivational Self System. The paper concludes that implicit attitudes seem to be a meaningful individual difference variable, adding a new dimension to our understanding of language motivation.