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Recent research suggests that visual-verbal paired associate learning (PAL) taps a crossmodal associative learning mechanism involved in reading acquisition. However, evidence from children with dyslexia indicates that deficits in visual-verbal PAL are strongly linked to the verbal demands of the task. The research presented in this thesis had two overarching aims: first, to dissociate crossmodal and verbal demands in driving the PAL-reading relationship, and second, to assess the hypothesis that visual-verbal PAL plays a causal role in reading development. To address the first aim, a series of experiments examined the relationship between reading ability and PAL tasks differing in modality (crossmodal, unimodal) and output demand (visual, verbal). The results supported a verbal account of the PAL-reading relationship. In typically developing children and children with dyslexia, only tasks with a verbal output demand (i.e., visual-verbal PAL, verbal-verbal PAL) demonstrated a relationship with reading ability. In children with dyslexia, poor performance was isolated to difficulties learning novel phonological forms, rather than difficulties specific to crossmodal associative learning. Furthermore, the ability to learn novel phonological forms was found to fully explain visual-verbal PAL performance across reading abilities. In a final experiment, the causal role of visual-verbal PAL in reading development was assessed. The results of a longitudinal study from the start to the end of kindergarten showed that visual-verbal PAL measured in pre-readers did not predict reading ability at the end of kindergarten. Instead, PAL performance was influenced by learning to read.

The objective of this thesis was to examine the effectiveness of contact and imagined contact (a derivative of direct contact) in reducing intergroup prejudice when the prejudice in question is deemed socially acceptable. Studies focused on two populations that are targets of socially acceptable, prejudice – people suffering from schizophrenia in the U.K., and homosexual men in Jamaica. These target groups were selected because they are similar in that they are both targets of socially acceptable prejudice, but also because of their differences in that the stereotypes associated with them are quite dissimilar. The first part of the thesis empirically tested the assumption that the aforementioned populations are targets of socially acceptable prejudice. Two cross-sectional studies, one of which was also cross-cultural, measured motivation to control prejudice against these target groups, and compared it to motivation to control prejudice against targets of socially unacceptable prejudice. I found that motivation to control prejudice against people with schizophrenia in the U.K. was lower than motivation to control prejudice against Black people in the U.K. Also, motivation to control prejudice against homosexual men was higher in the U.K. and the U.S.A. than in Jamaica, and differences in motivation to control unspecified prejudice were significantly smaller. The second part examined the association between actual contact and prejudice for both populations. Two cross-sectional studies, one of which was also cross-cultural, found that contact was associated with less prejudice. This effect was mediated by intergroup anxiety in all cases, and also by fear in the case of people with schizophrenia. Furthermore, I found that contact was more strongly negatively associated with anti-homosexual prejudice in Jamaica, where the prejudice is socially acceptable, than it was in Britain, where the prejudice is not socially acceptable. The third part tested the effect of imagined contact, a form of extended contact, on prejudice against people with schizophrenia. Four experimental studies demonstrated that imagined contact can be an effective means of reducing prejudice against this group. However imagined contact must be conducted in very specific ways, otherwise it has the potential to increase prejudice against people with schizophrenia.

This thesis aims to investigate the secondary transfer effect of contact, a phenomenon whereby contact with one outgroup leads to improved attitudes towards other, non-contacted outgroups. While evidence mounts for the existence of secondary transfer effects, its underlying mediation processes remain poorly conceptualised and thus, poorly understood. Thus, in this thesis, I aimed to clarify the conditions under and the processes by which the secondary transfer effect works. Chapter 1 introduces intergroup contact theory and traces its development from the contact hypothesis (Allport, 1954) to the uncovering of the secondary transfer effect. Based on theory from all aspects of intergroup contact research, Chapter 1 proposes a theoretically reformulated approach to understanding the deprovincialization hypothesis by way of (1) diversity beliefs, (2) the development of a multicultural outlook on intergroup relations, and (3) a more nuanced understanding of when ingroup identity is likely to relate ethnocentrically to outgroup attitudes. Point three more specifically looks at the role of social dominance orientation as a moderator of the relationship between ingroup identification and outgroup attitude. Chapter 1 also provides an extension to the attitude generalization hypothesis by considering the role that similarity gradients play. Chapter 2 discusses methodological considerations important to the analysis strategy used throughout the thesis. Six empirical investigations across three contexts—England (Studies 1 and 2), Northern Ireland (Studies 3 and 4) and South Africa (Studies 5 and 6) set out to test the secondary transfer effect and the hypotheses offered in Chapter 1. Across three cross-sectional studies (Studies 1, 2, 3, and 4), a three-wave longitudinal study (Study 5) and an experimental study (Study 6), I was able to show the following: (a) that attitude generalization is a robust mediator of the secondary transfer effect (Studies 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5); (b) similarity gradients qualify the attitude generalization process such that attitudes generalize more strongly between outgroups that are perceived to be similar (Studies 3, 4, and 5); (c) that diversity beliefs (Study 2) and multiculturalism (Study 4), as alternative interpretations of the deprovincialization effect, mediate the secondary transfer effect; (d) social dominance orientation moderates the relationship between ingroup identification and outgroup attitude (Study 3); (e) that the deprovincialization and attitude generalization hypotheses are not independent, but rather interrelated processes of the secondary transfer effect (Studies 2, 3, and 4); (f) that experimentally manipulated forms of extended contact can lead to the secondary transfer effect because group categories and membership are made salient during the extended contact experience (Study 6); and (g) that it is contact that leads to wider attitude generalization rather than less prejudiced people seeking contact from a wider pool of social groups (Study 5). Furthermore, owing to their three-wave longitudinal (Study 5) and experimental (Study 6) designs, these two studies provide the most convincing evidence of the causal nature—from contact to reduced prejudice—of the secondary transfer effect to date. Taken together, these six studies provide a wealth of critical support for the secondary transfer effect as well as for the reformulated deprovincialization and the extended attitude generalization hypotheses.

Data are presented in seven chapters that address the reciprocal relationship between oral vocabulary and reading development. Chapter 2 explores exception word reading in poor comprehenders longitudinally, finding deficits that are pervasive over a period of two years. The results support the hypothesis that weak oral vocabulary skills are causally related to poor exception word reading in this group. In Chapter 3, orthographic and semantic skills in poor comprehenders are investigated in a word learning paradigm. This chapter provides evidence that poor comprehenders have more difficulty learning and retaining semantic information than orthographic information. A similar paradigm is described in Chapter 4 to investigate predictors of orthographic and semantic learning. In a large group of typically developing readers, this demonstrates that decoding is the strongest predictor of orthographic learning while existing oral vocabulary knowledge is the strongest predictor of semantic learning. In Chapters 5 and 6 orthographic and semantic skills in poor comprehenders and children with dyslexia are compared using standard off-line tasks (Chapter 5) and an online word learning experiment (Chapter 6). These chapters indicate similarities as well as differences in the reading and language profiles of these groups. Chapter 7 adopts a different approach by using a word learning study to investigate the benefit of teaching new oral vocabulary in the presence of orthography.

The goal of this thesis is to track latency changes in three visual evoked potentials (VEP) stimuli as an indication of overall brain development, in order to provide a normative baseline to differentiate visual and neurological development from pathological processes. VEP- neural electrical activity recorded from the scalp surface and synchronized with visual stimulus transitions- is one of the common techniques in understanding infant vision development. Past work has concentrated on responses to pattern reversal and to the latency of the initial positive peak. Here we compare the timing of responses to pattern, orientation, and direction-reversal VEPs, and transient peak latencies to those calculated from the gradient of steady-state phase against reversal rate. The three stimuli were tested in 81 adults at 1- 16 r/s and 137 infants (3.6- 79.0 weeks) at 2- 8 r/s. Initial responses to orientation and direction were as fast as for contrast- around 100 ms, consistent with other findings that V1 is orientation selective. Cortical processing for both OR and DR yielded longer latencies (200 ms) by the calculated method, perhaps reflecting more involvement of higher visual processing in comparison to PR. Orientation and direction latencies also had a delayed onset and longer developmental period to reach maturity. Infants reached adult transient PR latency values by 15 weeks, for OR by 50 weeks, and for DR by 10 weeks. For the calculated latency, infants reached both adult PR and DR latencies by 30 weeks while OR showed little change across age. We successfully confirmed that (1) phase-based calculation of latency is effective, easy to use, and taps into a different cortical pathway; (2) motion processing has an additional, faster, subcortical pathway; (3) a parallel processing of initial contrast and orientation; and (4) later visual processing is not only developmentally delayed for all three stimuli but also more vulnerable to perinatal brain damage. These latency differences provided a baseline for clinical evaluations where identification of delayed latencies should aid early diagnosis and guide therapies for adults and infants.

A longitudinal study lasting 3.5 years was conducted to investigate complex grammar development, focusing on acquisition of the passive and type 3 conditionals, and its relationship with a number of domain-general, domain-specific and environmental factors. 128 children (M = 5 years 10 months) were tested at the beginning and towards the end of each school year starting from Year 1. The administered measures included established tests of fluid intelligence, short-term and working memory, seriation, grammar, vocabulary, literacy and arithmetic, plus newly-developed tests of passive and conditional sentence acquisition, and arithmetic word problem solving. It was demonstrated that grammar acquisition is not complete even when children start Year 4 of primary school (M = 8 years 7 months), when the current study was completed. At that time, 32% of children have not acquired type 3 conditionals and 89% showed no understanding of centre-embedded sentences. However, only 3% showed no passive sentence acquisition. Fluid intelligence, verbal STM and WM, ability to seriate, vocabulary and parental education level were all found to contribute to individual differences in complex grammar acquisition, independently of age differences and, where relevant, independently of non-verbal ability. There were differences between the passives and the conditionals in their relationship to these variables. Complex grammar development was found to be a significant predictor of reading comprehension, spelling and arithmetic performance, independently of age, non-verbal ability, verbal STM and WM. The findings demonstrate the inter-relatedness of higher cognitive functions, particularly domain-general with domain-specific ones. Modularity in its strictest sense (informational encapsulation, functional isolation) is not present in normally developing brains. Educational applications of the results are discussed.

<b>Background:</b> Defined by their mechanisms, social and psychological interventions are those interventions that work through mental processes and social phenomena. They are often complex and challenging to evaluate, so understanding randomised controlled trials (RCTs) of these interventions requires detailed reports of the interventions tested and the methods used to assess them. However, reports of these RCTs often omit important information. Poor reporting hinders critical appraisal and synthesis of RCTs in systematic reviews, thereby impeding the effective transfer of research evidence to policy and practice. The Consolidated Standards for Reporting Trials (CONSORT) Statement is a reporting guideline that has contributed to improvements in the quality of RCT manuscripts in journals publishing medical research. However, studies have shown persistent deficiencies in the reporting quality of social and psychological intervention trials. A new CONSORT extension for these interventions may be needed given their distinct and complex features. This DPhil thesis reports on a project to develop and disseminate an official CONSORT Extension for Social and Psychological Interventions: CONSORT-SPI. <b>Structure:</b> Following a preface, this DPhil thesis includes eight chapters. Chapter 1 provides an overview of the conceptual rationale that prompted the CONSORT-SPI project. Chapter 2 details the project protocol, which consists of a five-phase methodology that follows current best practices for reporting guideline development and dissemination. Chapter 3 discusses systematic literature reviews to assess reporting guidelines for and the reporting quality of publications of social and psychological intervention RCTs. Chapter 4 discusses an online, international Delphi process to generate a prioritised list of possible items to include in the CONSORT-SPI extension. Chapter 5 discusses a formal consensus meeting to select reporting items to add to or modify for the CONSORT-SPI Extension checklist. Chapter 6 involves drafts of the CONSORT-SPI checklist as well as a template for the Explanation and Elaboration (E&E) document providing detailed advice and examples of good reporting for each checklist item. These drafts have not yet been circulated to co-authors or other members of the project team; their purpose in this thesis is to give an indication of how previous project phases have led into initial prototypes of the checklist and E&E, which will undergo further development and revision by the project team before publication. Chapter 7 proposes a coordinated dissemination and implementation strategy informed by theoretical frameworks and tools used to guide the implementation of clinical guidelines and empirically-supported interventions. The final chapter summarises the information gained from the CONSORT-SPI project to date, assesses strengths and limitations of the project methodology, and discusses implications for future research. <b>Conclusion:</b> A CONSORT-SPI Extension could improve the reporting quality of social and psychological intervention RCTs. This extension could also facilitate better critical appraisal of this body of research and its use in evidence-based decision-making. With successful dissemination and implementation, the guideline will hopefully contribute to the improvement of intervention evaluations—as well as the methodology underpinning these studies—within the social and behavioural sciences.