Elicited imitation (EI) is a testing method for learners’ oral language proficiency. One common criticism aimed at EI is that performance might not require linguistic knowledge, but mere rote memorization. This study explores the issue by administering two tests to the same group of students studying English as a second language: (1) a working memory test, and (2) an English EI test. Participan...

The robust and efficient recognition of visual relations in images is a hallmark of biological vision. Here, we argue that, despite recent progresses in visual recognition, modern machine vision algorithms are severely limited in their ability to learn visual relations. Through controlled experiments, we demonstrate that visual-relation problems strain convolutional neural networks (CNNs). The ...

Can a child who is not exposed to a model for language nevertheless construct a communication system characterized by combinatorial structure? We know that deaf children whose hearing losses prevent them from acquiring spoken language, and whose hearing parents have not exposed them to sign language, use gestures, called homesigns, to communicate. In this study, we call upon a new formal analys...

From an early age, children can go beyond rote memorization to form links between print and speech that are based on letter names in the initial positions of words (Treiman & Rodriguez, 1999; Treiman, Sotak, & Bowman, 2001). For example, children's knowledge of the name of the letter t helps them learn that the novel word TM is pronounced as team. Four experiments were carried out to determine ...

The robust and efficient recognition of visual relations in images is a hallmark of biological vision. Here, we argue that, despite recent progress in visual recognition, modern machine vision algorithms are severely limited in their ability to learn visual relations. Through controlled experiments, we demonstrate that visual-relation problems strain convolutional neural networks (CNNs). The ne...

This study examines students’ metacognitive knowledge of oral presentations in English (OPIE) and their activities when preparing them, as well the relationship between metacognition differences proficiency. Based on insight we gained through this study, conducted an educational intervention reported results. We implemented interventions for 37 university students, such learning expression incl...

The present project aims to design a computer-based tutor that promotes the robust learning of Chinese characters for Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) learners. While much previous research has focused on the teaching of Chinese characters based on semantic radicals and phonetic components, these instructional methods can only be applied to a limited subset of characters. In this project, we...

The importance of mathematics literacy and problem solving has been emphasized by researchers (e.g., De Corte, Greer, & Verschaffel, 1996; Goldman, Hasselbring, & the Cognition and Technology Group at Vanderbilt, 1997; Patton, Cronin, Bassett, & Koppel, 1997) and in national reports (e.g., National Council of Teachers of Mathematics [NCTM], 2000; National Education Goals Panel, 1997). Although ...

Examining the effect of high-stakes tests on learners’ perceptions has been one of the strands of washback-related research. The present study purported to investigate the washback effect of the English section of the Iranian National University Entrance Exam (henceforth INUEE) on the pre-university students’ perceptions about the high-stakes test. The participants of the study were 218 female ...