Recent language testing research investigates factors other than language proficiency that may be responsible for systematic variance in language test performance. One such factor is the test takers' cognitive styles. The present study was carried out with the aim of finding the probable effects of Iranian EFL learners' cognitive styles on their performance on communicative tests. For purposes ...

All languages rely to some extent on word order to signal relational information. Why? We address this question by exploring communicative and cognitive factors that could lead to a reliance on word order. In Study 1, adults were asked to describe scenes to another using their hands and not their mouths. The question was whether this home-made "language" would contain gesture sentences with con...

Communication is not as smooth a process as current pragmatic theories depict it. In Rapaport’s words “We almost always fail [...]. Yet we almost always nearly succeed: This is the paradox of communication” (Rapaport 2003: 402). This paper claims that there is a need for an approach that is able to explain this “bumpy road” by analyzing both the positive and negative features of the communicati...

Objective. This longitudinal investigation explores how fathers engage with their infants, how their behaviors matter within and across developmental time, and how demographic and social factors affect the quality of the father – infant relationship. Design. Participants were 74 racially and ethnically diverse, low-income fathers from the Father and Newborn Study (FANS) and their 8and 16-month-...

This paper reports three experiments that investigate the influence of pragmatic, communicative factors on categorization. Little attention has been given to the role played by pragmatic factors such as the intended audience and purpose of communication. Experiment 1 establishes baseline measures of categorization and similarity for a range of exemplars of biological categories. Experiment 2 re...

This paper reports three experiments that investigate the influence of pragmatic, communicative factors on categorization. Little attention has been given to the role played by pragmatic factors such as the intended audience and purpose of communication. Experiment 1 establishes baseline measures of categorization and similarity for a range of exemplars of biological categories. Experiment 2 re...

PURPOSE To examine patterns of sensory responsiveness (i.e., hyperresponsiveness, hyporesponsiveness, and sensory seeking) as factors that may account for variability in social-communicative symptoms of autism and variability in language, social, and communication skill development in children with autism or other developmental disabilities (DDs). METHOD Children with autistic disorder (AD; n...

Recent controversy in the treatment of communication apprehension and avoidance has centered around whether an individual's communicative difficulties are caused by communicative (skills) deficiency or psychological problems (anxiety). Such debates are not new; arguments about whetimr to treat communicative difficulties from a communicative or a psychological perspective date back to the foundi...