Research on word learning has focused on childrens ability to identify a target object when given the word form after a minimal number of exposures to novel word-object pairings. However, relatively little research has focused on childrens ability to retrieve the word form when given the target object. The exceptions involve asking children to recall and produce forms, and children typically perform near floor on these measures. In the current study, 3- to 5-year-old children were administered a novel test of word form that allowed for recognition memory and manual responses. Specifically, when asked to label a previously trained object, children were given three forms to choose from: the target, a minimally different form, and a maximally different form. Children demonstrated memory for word forms at three post-training delays: 10 mins (short-term), 23 days (long-term), and 6 months to 1 year (very long-term). However, children performed worse at the very long-term delay than the other time points, and the length of the very long-term delay was negatively related to performance. When in error, children were no more likely to select the minimally different form than the maximally different form at all time points. Overall, these results suggest that children remember word forms that are linked to objects over extended post-training intervals, but that their memory for the forms gradually decreases over time without further exposures. Furthermore, memory traces for word forms do not become less phonologically specific over time; rather children either identify the correct form, or they perform at chance.

This thesis deals with Swedish full text retrieval and the problem of morphological variation of query terms in thedocument database. The study is an information retrieval experiment with a test collection. While no Swedish testcollection was available, such a collection was constructed. It consists of a document database containing 161,336news articles, and 52 topics with four-graded (0, 1, 2, 3) relevance assessments. The effects of indexing strategy-query term combination on retrieval effectiveness were studied. Three of five testedmethods involved indexing strategies that used conflation, in the form of normalization. Further, two of these threecombinations used indexing strategies that employed compound splitting. Normalization and compound splittingwere performed by SWETWOL, a morphological analyzer for the Swedish language. A fourth combinationattempted to group related terms by right hand truncation of query terms. A search expert performed the truncation.The four combinations were compared to each other and to a baseline combination, where no attempt was made tocounteract the problem of morphological variation of query terms in the document database. Two situations were examined in the evaluation: the binary relevance situation and the multiple degree relevancesituation. With regard to the binary relevance situation, where the three (positive) relevance degrees (1, 2, 3) weremerged into one, and where precision was used as evaluation measure, the four alternative combinationsoutperformed the baseline. The best performing combination was the combination that used truncation. Thiscombination performed better than or equal to a median precision value for 41 of the 52 topics. One reason for therelatively good performance of the truncation combination was the capacity of its queries to retrieve different partsof speech. In the multiple degree relevance situation, where the three (positive) relevance degrees were retained, retrievaleffectiveness was taken to be the accumulated gain the user receives by examining the retrieval result up to givenpositions. The evaluation measure used was nDCG (normalized cumulated gain with discount). This measurecredits retrieval methods that (1) rank highly relevant documents higher than less relevant ones, and (2) rankrelevant (of any degree) documents high. With respect to (2), nDCG involves a discount component: a discount withregard to the relevance score of a relevant (of any degree) document is performed, and this discount is greater andgreater, the higher position the document has in the ranked list of retrieved documents. In the multiple degree relevance situation, the five combinations were evaluated under four different user scenarios,where each scenario simulated a certain user type. Again, the four alternative combinations outperformed thebaseline, for each user scenario. The truncation combination had the best performance under each user scenario.This outcome agreed with the performance result in the binary relevance situation. However, there were alsodifferences between the two relevance situations. For 25 percent of the topics and with regard to one of the four userscenarios, the set of best performing combinations in the binary relevance situation was disjunct from the set of bestperforming combinations in the multiple degree relevance situation. The user scenario in question was such thatalmost all importance was placed on highly relevant documents, and the discount was sharp. The main conclusion of the thesis is that normalization and right hand truncation (performed by a search expert)enhanced retrieval effectiveness in comparison to the baseline, irrespective of which of the two relevance situationswe consider. Further, the three indexing strategy-query term combinations based on normalization were almost asgood as the combination that involves truncation. This holds for both relevance situations. / <p>QC 20150813</p>

The aim of the present study was to investigate whether learning a meaningless phonological word-form, can affect its ability to compete with other words shortly after it was learned. According to previous experimental work we expected that a semantic referent (Leach & Samuel, 2007), and/or consolidation over a significant amount of time (Gaskell& Dumay, 2003) are necessary for a novel word-form to be able to engage in lateral inhibition with other words. In order to examine this we used the experimental design that was used by Dahan, Magnuson, Tanenhaus and Hogan (2001). Experiment 1 was a replication of the Dahan et al (2001) study. In Experiment 2 we added a condition in which a novel word was now assigned the role of the competitor, by inserting a nonword learning task (that was performed right before the Dahan task). The goal was to see whether any differences would arise between this new novel-word condition and the nonword condition. The results from Experiment 2 were inconclusive due to the stimulus set and this is why we conducted Experiment 3, which was similar to Experiment 2, but had a different stimulus set. The results of Experiment 3 showed that, in contrast to the predictions, a novel word can compete with other words, even if it does not have meaning and, moreover, this happens immediately after training. These findings indicate that 1) a word does not have to be complete (i.e. include semantic information) in order to compete with other words and 2) connections between novel and known words can form faster than what has been suggested.

Human information processing depends critically on continuous predictions about upcoming events, but the temporal convergence of expectancy-based top-down and input-driven bottom-up streams is poorly understood. We show that, during reading, event-related potentials differ between exposure to highly predictable and unpredictable words no later than 90 ms after visual input. This result suggests an extremely rapid comparison of expected and incoming visual information and gives an upper temporal bound for theories of top-down and bottom-up interactions in object recognition.

The thesis focuses on the processing of morphologically complex words in Czech. It follows up on the previous research in the field of inflectional morphology, in which Czech is minimally represented. The thesis is divided into two parts. The first part describes the main theoretical approaches, which are connectionism and dualism. The second part describes an experiment, which was carried out following the previous research and aimed at comparing the claims of the two main approaches. The experiment was conducted on 37 native speakers of Czech aged from eight to eleven. The participants' task was to say as quickly as possible the genitive form of a noun that appeared on the screen of an electronic device in nominative form. The results of the research do not support the dualistic thoughts, but rather support the connectionist view. However, further empirical research is needed for a clear conclusion. Key words speeded production; inflected word form; frequency; language acquisition; inflection

By 4.5 months infants listen longer to their names compared to matched foils, which is the earliest empirically demonstrated sign of word-form recognition. This ability develops gradually in the first year of life and becomes increasingly advanced. The present study investigated word-form recognition in 6-month-olds using event-related potentials (ERPs). To date, few studies have demonstrated word-form recognition at this age, and only one study has presented electrophysiological evidence. In addition, the present study investigated the effect of speech register on word-form recognition. Studies on language acquisition indicate that adjustments adults and older children make in interaction with infants are relevant for language learning. This speech register, commonly referred to as infant-directed speech (IDS), differs from adult-directed speech (ADS) in several respects. Studies on word-form recognition did typically not compare recognition effects for word forms familiarized (meaning trained) in IDS with word forms familiarized in ADS, however, the present study did. No recognition effects for either IDS or ADS were found. Moreover, there were no differences in ERP-responses for word forms familiarized in IDS compared to word forms familiarized in ADS. The main conclusion is that word-form recognition is still unstable at 6 months. / Vid 4.5 månaders ålder lyssnar spädbarn längre till sitt namn än andra liknande namn, vilket är det tidigast påvisade tecknet på igenkänning av ordformer. Förmågan utvecklas gradvis under det första levnadsåret och blir mer avancerad. Den aktuella studien undersökte igenkänning av ordformer hos 6 månaders spädbarn genom eventrelaterade potentialer (ERPer). I dagsläget har ett fåtal studier demonstrerat igenkänningseffekter vid den här åldern, och endast en studie har presenterat elektrofysiologiska bevis. Den aktuella studien undersökte även hur talstilen påverkar spädbarns igenkänning av ordformer. Studier inom barns språkutveckling indikerar att anpassningar som vuxna och äldre barn gör i interaktion med spädbarn är relevanta för språkinlärningen. Den här talstilen, ofta kallad barnriktat tal (BRT) skiljer sig från vuxenriktat tal (VRT) i flera avseenden. Studier som har undersökt igenkänning av ordformer hos spädbarn har inte jämfört igenkänningseffekter för ordformer som presenterats (dvs. tränats) i BRT med ordformer som presenterats i VRT, vilket den aktuella studien gör. Inga igenkänningseffekter påvisades för BRT eller VRT. Vidare fanns inga skillnader i ERP-responsen för ordformer presenterade i BRT jämfört med ordformer presenterade i VRT. Slutsatsen är att spädbarns igenkänning av ordformer fortfarande är instabil vid 6 månader.

本論文採用負向促發作業，探討中英雙語者之認知處理，主要研究目的為：一、探討雙語連結因不同促發順序（L1-L2 或 L2-L1）所致的不對稱性，及其連結性質的差異。二、探討不同 L2 熟練度的雙語者，是否表現出不同的雙語連結型態，而有發展性變遷的現象。三、探討雙語概念、詞彙的連結，是否會因文字形式、雙語文字間的相關或對譯關係的不同，而有不同的型態。 在兩個實驗中，所進行之負向促發作業卻產生正向促發效果，根據文獻推論可能是 SOA 間距不夠長；且繼續分析此促發效果型態，仍有其理論意義。 實驗一以 20 名中文四同學、 20 名英文四同學，進行匿視促發項之跨語言語意相關字彙判斷作業，結果發現：促發順序 L1-L2 產生顯著效果、L2-L1 無顯著效果、兩方向間的不對稱值隨著 L2 熟練度提高而變小。顯示雙語間的不對稱現象，是因兩方向之連結性質不同所致，且此不對稱有發展性變遷的現象，與雙語之「修正階層模式」預測一致。 實驗二以 24 名一般大學生，採相同作業程序，進行匿視促發項之跨語言對譯字（具體、抽象）、相關字字彙判斷，結果發現：整體之數據分析，顯示對譯字並未比相關字產生較大效果；具體對譯字也沒有比抽象對譯字產生較大效果；具體對譯字在兩促發順序之不對稱值也沒有比抽象對譯字小。但分別將對譯字、相關字在不同促發順序分析其不對稱情形、及在 L2-L1 情況對譯字、相關字之效果差異，顯示此部份結果符合以「修正階層模式」為基礎所提出之預測。 總括而言，中英雙語之概念、詞彙連結之不對稱性，亦能以「修正階層模式」加以解釋；但是文字形式對中英雙語之影響，仍有待更進一步研究來加以釐清。