[pt] Esta dissertação insere-se na área da Psicolinguística e teve como objetivo analisar como alunos de Ensino Médio fazem a leitura das provas de espanhol do ENEM, identificando os custos associados à compreensão dos textos. A pesquisa envolveu (i) a análise linguística das provas de 2010 a 2017 e das habilidades de leitura, conforme as matrizes de referência do ENEM e do PISA e (ii) o exame das estratégias de leitura empregadas na realização da prova de 2017. Foi comparado o desempenho de 44 alunos com tempos distintos de exposição à língua espanhola (pelo menos 50 horas/aula vs. menos de 17 horas/aula). Os dados foram obtidos por meio do programa de gravação de tela Active Presenter e do rastreador ocular Tobii Pro-X3 120 Hz. Os principais aportes teóricos foram pesquisas no campo da leitura e da Psicolinguística do Bilinguismo. Os resultados indicam diferenças de complexidade entre as provas quanto às estruturas e o vocabulário, foco em habilidades de integração e interpretação de textos, e uso e função social das estruturas. A taxa de acertos foi inferior a 50 por cento, com desempenho superior para o grupo com maior exposição à língua na atividade no rastreador ocular. A média de tempo para realização da prova foi compatível com o previsto para o ENEM. Não houve diferença significativa entre os grupos quanto ao número de releituras e poucos iniciaram a leitura pelo enunciado. Em relação aos parâmetros oculares, também não há evidências de desempenho distinto. / [en] This thesis is developed under the scope of Psycholinguistics and is aimed at analyzing how high school students read the ENEM Spanish tests, in addition to identifying cost associated with reading comprehension. The research involved (i) the linguistic analysis of the 2010-2017 tests and reading skills in accordance to the ENEM and PISA reference matrices and (ii) the examination of the reading strategies employed in the 2017 test. The performance of 44 students with different language exposure time to Spanish (at least 50 hours of in-class exposure vs. less than 17 in-class exposure) was compared. The data were obtained through the Active Presenter screen recording program and Tobii Pro-X3 120 Hz eye tracker. The main theoretical frameworks were research in the field of reading and Psycholinguistics of Bilingualism. The results show differences in complexity between the tests regarding structure and vocabulary, focus on text integration and reading skills, and use and social function of the structures. The hit rate was less than 50 percent, and the group with the highest language exposure outperformed in the eye tracker activity. The average time to perform the test was compatible with the one predicted for ENEM. There was no significant difference between the groups in the number of rereading times, and few started reading by the statement. Regarding eye parameters, there is also no evidence of distinct performance.

<p>Neural responses to anticipatory coarticulatory cues were investigated across systematically varying phonological conditions. Congruent or incongruent subphonemic information was placed between an initial consonant and a vowel in a consonant-vowel- consonant (CVC) spoken word (Archibald & Joanisse, 2011). Due to physical and temporal differences across sound classes, the objective was to investigate whether coarticulatory information would be processed differently across controlled manipulations of onset (fricative vs. stop) and vowel type (height vs. backness). Event- related potentials (ERPs) were recorded during a printed-word/spoken-word matching paradigm, in which participants indicated whether a visual prime stimulus and a spoken word matched/mismatched. The “Phonological Mapping Negativity” (PMN) component provides strong evidence that the use of coarticulatory information in speech recognition varies in strength and timing as a function of onset type (fricative vs. stop) and vowel height (high vs. low). Coarticulatory cues were more readily perceived in spoken word beginning with fricatives than with stops. Similarly, subphonemic variations were more easily detected in low vowels than in high vowels. Observed perceptual and temporal differences are interpreted to reflect variations in subphonemic and phonological processing.</p> / Master of Science (MSc)

Deux interrogations sont à l'origine de cette recherche: un « problème herméneutique » qui porte sur ce que l'injonction pascalienne « travaillons donc à bien penser » est en mesure de signifier dans le contexte de l’augustinisme cartésien qui disqualifie les voies traditionnelles de la raison et un questionnement méthodologique qui porte sur la manière dont on peut travailler à bien penser la somme fondamentalement incertaine constituée par les petits papiers découverts à la mort de Pascal. La première partie pose que la déconstruction et la dissémination du Texte pascalien ne peuvent autoriser une méthode herméneutique que si elles sont éclairées par une intention qui en pense la nécessité et le sens, très exactement sur le modèle gnoséologique de la Bible, que l'exégèse renaissante commence à ressaisir dans son historicité. Le renoncement visible des « petits papiers » aux trois principes de la congruence, de la non-répétition et de la non-contradiction, qui fondent dans notre coutume le « texte » peut être qualifié d'intentionnel. Sur ce fondement, qui légitime une méthode herméneutique, la seconde partie montre que si la nature de l'homme se reflète dans sa pensée, tout entière suspendue par nature entre une double polarité qui la fait osciller entre hasard et nécessité, vide et intentionnalité, ordre et désordre, alors le seul discours auquel il s'agit de se soumettre en tant qu'il restaure un sens et une nécessité au monde jusqu'au coeur du hasard apparent et du fonctionnement de la pensée humaine (que seule la pensée peut penser) est l'enseignement des deux Testaments. / This research work stems from two main questions: on the one hand, from a 'hermeneutical problem' funded on what Pascal‟s famous injunction -'Let us strive, then, to think well' -might mean in the context of Augustinian Cartesianism, which disqualifies traditional reasoning, and on the other hand, from a methodological questioning funded on the ways in which one might strive, then, to think well the notes found on the many scraps of paper discovered after Pascal‟s death. The first part argues that the deconstruction and dissemination of the Text can only authorize a hermeneutical approach provided they are enlightened by a specific intention, which might think out its very necessity and meaning, on the same mode as the gnoseological model of the Bible, which the emerging exegesis is just beginning to seize again by adopting a historicist approach. In the „scraps of paper‟, the renunciation to the three principles of congruence, non-repetition and non-contradiction, which are the foundations of the „text‟, can clearly be described as intentional. There entails from that a legitimate hermeneutical approach, which is developed in the second part. It shows that if the nature of man is reflected in his thought, itself held up by nature between a double polarity, with thought oscillating between chance and necessity, emptiness and intentionality, order and disorder, then the only discourse to which one can be submitted is the teaching of the two Testaments, inasmuch as it re-installs some meaning and necessity to the world, as well as to the workings of human thought (which our thought only can think).

Les interactions avec les parents jouent un rôle formateur dans le développement et l’apprentissage du langage chez le jeune enfant. En effet, la quantité et le style de langage utilisés par les parents influencent la qualité de l’interaction et par là même la façon dont le langage de leur enfant évolue (Gallaway et Richards, 1999). Toutefois, cette évolution diffère selon les classes sociales et ce dès leur plus jeune âge (avant l’entrée à l’école élémentaire). D’un côté, les enfants de classe favorisée présentent une grande diversité lexicale car ils sont exposés à un discours riche en informations relatives à diverses situations. En revanche, les enfants, issus de classe défavorisée, présentent un retard en ce qui concerne les aptitudes langagières (Hoff, 2003 ; Feldman et al., 2000), car ils sont confrontés à des modèles d’apprentissages moins élaborés. En effet, les années préscolaires sont primordiales pour le développement lexical du jeune enfant d’autant plus, qu’à l’âge de 5 ans, il se prépare à entrer à l’école élémentaire. Il est donc nécessaire d’étudier l’influence de l’environnement scolaire et notamment l’interaction enseignant-enfant sur les performances verbales des enfants dans le but de leur garantir une meilleure intégration scolaire ensuite. Notre intérêt dans cette étude porte donc sur le rôle de l’école maternelle dont l’objectif majeur est la maîtrise du langage oral. Il apparaît opportun de prendre en compte, dans le cadre des apprentissages scolaires, les difficultés ainsi que les compétences de l’enfant pour l’aider à progresser (Florin, 2002). Notre recherche, réalisée auprès d’une population composée de 131 enfants âgés de 5 ans et de leurs 8 enseignantes, vise à comprendre si l’interaction enseignant-enfant a un impact sur les performances verbales des enfants et si cette interaction contribue à réduire les écarts de performances verbales langagières entre les enfants issus de classes sociales favorisée et défavorisée. / Interactions between the parents and the child have positive effects on the development and language learning amongst young children. The quality of interaction with the child is based on the amount and the quantity of the language style used by parents when addressing the child; which seems very important on language development (Gallaway et Richards, 1999).Children stemming from a privileged social class exhibit high lexical diversity. They are exposed to rich discourse information on various situations. Meanwhile, children from a disadvantaged social class are confronted-even before going to school-to different learning models and display a delay regarding language skills compared to their peers (Hoff, 2003 ; Feldman et al., 2000), even though the preschool years are important in the child lexical development. At age 5, the child is getting ready for elementary school, hence the importance of taking into account the influence of school environment, especially the interaction with the teacher on children verbal performance in order to ensure better school integration later.Our interest in this study focuses on the school environment whose major goal is to promote language proficiency, as it is a perquisite for school success. Hence, it seems appropriate to consider, in the context of school learning, the difficulty and the child’s skills in order to help them to progress (Florin, 2002). The main goal of our study, conducted among 131 5-year-old children and their eight teachers, is to underlie the importance of the school environment and particularly the interaction with the teacher on the development of the vocabulary at the preschooler age. Our goal is to determine if the teacher-child interaction has a positive impact on the child's verbal performance, and whether this interaction helps to reduce the gap on verbal achievement between children stemming from privileged and disadvantaged social classes.

Drawing on the principles of critical multicultural teacher education, Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) and bilingual education, this study examined how pre-service teachers were prepared to educate Emerging Bilinguals (EBs) in ESOL-infused teacher education programs in Florida universities. The textual analysis of a purposeful sample of five elementary-level English Language Arts (ELA) methods textbooks, utilizing a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods, revealed that authors overwhelmingly referred to EBs as English learners or English language learners, rather than bilinguals or dual language learners, and devoted less than 5% of the total content of four textbooks to topics about teaching methods, curriculum, and assessment for EBs. Evidence of five forms of curriculum bias was found, including invisibility, linguistic bias, fragmentation and isolation, stereotyping, and imbalance and selectivity. The findings suggest that textbook authors value knowledge about teaching EBs less than knowledge about teaching native English-speakers. EBs were stereotyped as a homogenous group of struggling readers and essentialized in terms of their limited English proficiency. One author conflated students’ language differences with physical limitations and learning disabilities, a troubling mischaracterization in the context of the overrepresentation of EBs in special education. Meanwhile, a preference shown for ESL methods over bilingual methods, based upon misconceptions about how EBs learn, suggests that textbook authors undervalue the cultures and linguistic skills that students bring from home. The hidden curriculum in ELA methods textbooks may influence a majority of pre-service teachers, who are typically monolingual and raised in the English-dominant mainstream culture, to develop a deficit view of EBs and utilize a one-size-fits-all approach towards ELA instruction. In order to prepare pre-service teachers to educate EBs for academic success, the teacher education curriculum must include material that explains linguistically responsive instruction and describes effective bilingual education models, within a critical pedagogical framework. Without this knowledge, pre-service teachers may continue instructional practices that contribute to a persistent “achievement gap” experienced by EBs. A transformation of the ELA methods curriculum is required so that pre-service teachers are prepared to implement a humanizing pedagogy that facilitates positive identity formation as it develops bilingual and biliterate students. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2016. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

Bilinguals commonly report experiencing emotions differently depending on which language are they speaking. Emotionally loaded words were expected to be appraised differently in first versus second language in a sample of Spanish-English bilinguals (n=117). English (L2) ratings were subtracted from Spanish (L1) ratings; the resulted scores were used as dependent variable in the analyses. Three categories of words (positive, negative and taboo) were appraised in both languages (English and Spanish)and two sensory modalities (Visual and auditory). The differences in valence scores in Spanish (L1) and English (L2) were expected to be significantly higher when presented aurally than when presented visually. Additionally, taboo words were expected to yield larger differential scores than negative and positive words. The 2 X 3 general linear model (GLM) revealed no significant effect of sensory modality but a significant effect of word type. Additional analyses of the influence of language and sensory modality within each word category resulted in significant differences in ratings between languages. Positive word ratings were higher (more positive) in English than in Spanish. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.S.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2015. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

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To increase fitness for survival, organisms not only passively react to environmental changes but also actively predict future events to prepare for potential hazards within their environment. Accumulating evidence indicates that the human brain is a remarkable predictive machine which constantly models causal relationships and predicts future events. This ‘predictive processing' framework, a prediction-based form of Bayesian inference, states that the brain continuously generates and updates predictions about incoming sensory signals. This framework has been showing notable explanatory power in understanding the mechanisms behind both human behaviour and neurophysiological data and elegantly specifies the underlying computational principles of the neural system. However, even though predictive processing has the potential to provide a unified theory of the brain (Karl Friston, 2010), we still have a limited understanding about fundamental aspects of this model, such as how it deals with different types of information, learns statistical regularities and perhaps most fundamentally of all what its relationship to conscious experience is. This thesis aims to investigate the major gaps in our current understanding of the predictive processing framework via a series of studies. Study 1 investigated the fundamental relationship between unconscious statistical inference reflected by predictive processing and conscious access. It demonstrated that predictions that are in line with sensory evidence accelerate conscious access. Study 2 investigated how low level information within the sensory hierarchy is dealt with by predictive processing and regularity learning mechanisms through “perceptual echo” in which the cross-correlation between a sequence of randomly fluctuating luminance values and occipital electrophysiological (EEG) signals exhibits a long-lasting periodic (~100ms cycle) reverberation of the input stimulus. This study identified a new form of regularity learning and the results demonstrate that the perceptual echo may reflect an iterative learning process, governed by predictive processing. Study 3 investigated how supra-modal predictive processing is capable of learning regularities of temporal duration and also temporal predictions about future events. This study revealed a supramodal temporal prediction mechanism which processes auditory and visual temporal information and integrates information from the duration and rhythmic structures of events. Together these studies provide a global picture of predictive processing and regularity learning across differing types of predictive information.

The sense of agency is the experience of being the initiator of our intentional actions and their outcomes. According to higher order thought theory, a representation becomes conscious when there is a higher order state about it. Thus conscious experience, including that of intentions, is metacognitive. The experience of involuntariness characteristic of hypnotic responding may be attributable to the formation and maintenance of inaccurate metacognitive higher order states of intending. Conversely, the practice of Buddhist mindfulness meditation may develop accurate metacognition, including higher order states of intending. Highly hypnotisable people and mindfulness meditators may therefore occupy two ends of a spectrum of metacognitive ability with regard to unconscious intentions. The presented research investigated predicted trait differences in cognitive tasks which directly or indirectly reflect metacognition of intentions: the timing of an experience of an intention to move and the compressed time interval between a voluntary action and its outcome, known as intentional binding. As an implicit measure of sense of agency, intentional binding was also employed to investigate the veridicality of reports of the experience of involuntariness in hypnotic responding. Additionally, while hypnosis presents a unique opportunity to investigate reliable changes in agentic experience, existing hypnosis screening instruments are time consuming and present a barrier to wider adoption of hypnosis as an instrument for studying consciousness. Here a revised, time-efficient hypnosis screening procedure (the SWASH) is presented. Consistent with predictions, highly hypnotisable groups reported later awareness of motor intentions than less hypnotisable groups and meditators earlier awareness than non-meditators. In an intentional binding task, high hypnotisables showed less binding of an action-outcome toward an action (outcome binding) than low hypnotisables and meditators more outcome binding than non-meditators. Outcome binding was reduced in post-hypnotic involuntary action compared to voluntary action. It is proposed that intentional binding is driven by a cue combination mechanism and that these differences reflect varying precision of motor intention related information in reported timing judgements. The SWASH was found to be a reliable hypnosis screening instrument.