Effects of textual enhancement and task manipulation on L2 learners’ attentional processes and grammatical knowledge development: A mixed methods study

2021 ◽  
pp. 136216882110346
Author(s):  
Minjin Lee ◽  
Jookyoung Jung
Keyword(s):  
News Article ◽  
Eye Tracker ◽  
Grammatical Knowledge ◽  
Experimental Conditions ◽  
Attentional Processing ◽  
Reading Processes ◽  
Attentional Processes ◽  
Attentional Resources ◽  
Textual Enhancement ◽  
And Task

This study examined the extent to which textual enhancement and task manipulation affect the learners’ attentional processing and the development of second language (L2) grammatical knowledge. A total of 73 Korean college students read an opinion news article in one of four experimental conditions: (1) textually enhanced, careful reading, (2) textually enhanced, expeditious reading, (3) textually non-enhanced, careful reading, and (4) textually non-enhanced, expeditious reading. For the enhanced conditions, the target L2 construction, i.e. the use of English participle phrases in the restrictive use, was typographically enhanced using a different color. In addition, the reading task was manipulated in terms of the speed and the manner of reading, i.e. careful reading to remember textual information as accurately as possible or expeditious reading to figure out the gist as soon as possible. While reading the article, learners’ eye-movements were recorded with an eye-tracker to measure the allocation of attentional resources as well as reading processes. In addition, stimulated recalls were collected for qualitative analysis of learners’ attentional processes. The results revealed that both textual enhancement and task manipulation had significant effects on the way participants allocated their attentional resources during reading, while it did not affect their knowledge of the target constructions as reflected in their grammaticality judgment scores.

scholarly journals The role of cognitive load in modulating social looking: a mobile eye tracking study

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura J. Bianchi ◽  
Alan Kingstone ◽  
Evan F. Risko
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Load ◽  
Load Condition ◽  
Social Situation ◽  
Lower Proportion ◽  
Eye Tracker ◽  
Attentional Resources ◽  
Subject Design ◽  
Video Experiment ◽  
Back Task

Abstract The effect of cognitive load on social attention was examined across three experiments in a live pedestrian passing scenario (Experiments 1 and 2) and with the same scenario presented as a video (Experiment 3). In all three experiments, the load was manipulated using an auditory 2-back task. While the participant was wearing a mobile eye-tracker, the participant’s fixation behavior toward a confederate was recorded and analyzed based on temporal proximity from the confederate (near or far) and the specific regions of the confederate being observed (i.e., head or body). In Experiment 1 we demonstrated an effect of cognitive load such that there was a lower proportion of fixations and time spent fixating toward the confederate in the load condition. A similar pattern of results was found in Experiment 2 when a within-subject design was used. In Experiment 3, which employed a less authentic social situation (i.e., video), a similar effect of cognitive load was observed. Collectively, these results suggest attentional resources play a central role in social attentional behaviors in both authentic (real-world) and less authentic (video recorded) situations.

Promoting learning and unlearning through textual enhancement in a closely related L1-L2 relationship

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-30
Author(s):  
Paolo Della Putta
Keyword(s):  
Judgment Task ◽  
Experimental Conditions ◽  
Spanish Speaking ◽  
Instructional Treatment ◽  
Group A ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
Textual Enhancement ◽  
Group B ◽  
Syntactic Properties ◽  
Grammatical Judgment

AbstractThis study investigates the differential effects of Textual Enhancement (TE) on the learning and unlearning of two syntactic properties of Spanish – the absence of the Pre-possessive Determiner Article (PPDA) and the presence of the Prepositional Accusative (PA) – which each pose specific acquisitional difficulties for Italian-speaking learners of Spanish (ISS) due to their asymmetrical relationships with corresponding L1 structures. 77 ISS were divided in two experimental groups: group A read 5 texts with TE on PA – the feature to be learned – and group B read the same 5 texts with TE on PPDA – the feature to be unlearned. The participants took a timed grammatical judgment task three times (before, five days after, and two months after the instructional treatment). The results are compared with those of Della Putta (2016), a symmetrical study to this, in which the same teaching intervention and experimental conditions were adopted with Spanish-speaking learners of Italian, whose task was to unlearn PA and to learn PPDA. The bidirectional comparison shows a similar, weak effect of TE, although in the present study, unlike in Della Putta (2016), unlearning did not seem to be more difficult than learning. These similarities and differences are discussed and theoretically motivated.

scholarly journals Brief-ANT as a tool for measuring the influence of roadside advertisements content on the drivers’ attentional processes

2018 ◽  
Vol 231 ◽  
pp. 04009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Olejniczak-Serowiec ◽  
Norbert Maliszewski ◽  
Justyna Harasimczuk
Keyword(s):  
Road Safety ◽  
Situational Awareness ◽  
Luminance Contrast ◽  
Short Version ◽  
Cognitive Mechanisms ◽  
Attentional Processes ◽  
Advertising Industry ◽  
Resources Management ◽  
Attentional Resources ◽  
Brand Product

The question of roadside advertisement’s influence on road safety is complex and multi-faceted. The list of advertisements characteristics which may play significant role for road safety includes: the size, colours, shape, luminance, contrast, localization, and many more. One of the aspects is advertisement’s content. Advertising industry uses emotional and cognitive mechanisms which are likely to engage the addressees’ attention and therefore make the brand/product more salient for their minds. As far as such a strategy might be effective for advertisers, it may be dangerous for road safety, when used in roadside advertisement. Cognitive, especially attentional, resources play key role in vehicle driving, which requires constant maintenance of situational awareness. Attention distraction, both visual and cognitive, is a proven safety-decreasing factor in vehicle driving. A method for measuring the influence of different advertisement content on attentional resources management - a short, version of the ANT, Brief-ANT, was developed. The results of a nationwide study conducted, revealed that reaction time in Brief-ANT differed significantly depending on the type of content used as the fixation cue, which leads us to a conclusion that Brief-ANT might be a good measure of the content’s influence on attentional resources management.

scholarly journals Exploring attentional focus of older adult fallers during heightened postural threat

2019 ◽  
Vol 84 (7) ◽  
pp. 1877-1889 ◽  
Author(s):  
Toby J. Ellmers ◽  
Adam J. Cocks ◽  
William R. Young
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Attentional Focus ◽  
Monitoring And Control ◽  
Attentional Processing ◽  
Attentional Resources ◽  
Behavioral Adaptations ◽  
Regulatory Strategies ◽  
Postural Threat ◽  
Task Irrelevant ◽  
And Control

Abstract Objectives Threats to balance, and subsequent increases in fall-related anxiety, can disrupt attentional processing during gait in older adults, leading to behavioral adaptations which may increase fall risk. However, limited research has investigated what changes in attention occur to contribute to these disruptions. The aim of this research was to describe changes in attention that occur during gait when older adults’ balance is threatened, while exploring how previous fall history and trait movement reinvestment (conscious monitoring and control of movement) also influence attention. Methods Forty older adults reported where they focus their attention when walking during two scenarios: (1) when they are relaxed and there is little risk of falling, and; (2) when their balance is threatened and they are anxious of falling. Results During the high-threat condition, participants reported greater attention towards movement processes, threats to balance, worries/disturbing thoughts and self-regulatory strategies, with less attention directed towards task-irrelevant thoughts. However, fall history influenced attentional focus, with fallers directing greater attention towards worries/disturbing thoughts. Contrary to predictions, trait movement reinvestment was not associated with attention directed towards movement processes. Discussion As processing worries/disturbing thoughts will likely reduce attentional resources available for effective postural control, we highlight this as one potential area to target interventions aimed at reducing the likelihood of repeated falling.

scholarly journals Changes in the Spatial Distribution of Visual Attention after Early Deafness

2002 ◽  
Vol 14 (5) ◽  
pp. 687-701 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason Proksch ◽  
Daphne Bavelier
Keyword(s):  
Visual Field ◽  
Visual Attention ◽  
Visual Information ◽  
Search Task ◽  
Peripheral Visual Field ◽  
Auditory Deprivation ◽  
Attentional Processing ◽  
Attentional Resources ◽  
Visual Skills ◽  
Visual Tasks

There is much anecdotal suggestion of improved visual skills in congenitally deaf individuals. However, this claim has only been met by mixed results from careful investigations of visual skills in deaf individuals. Psychophysical assessments of visual functions have failed, for the most part, to validate the view of enhanced visual skills after deafness. Only a few studies have shown an advantage for deaf individuals in visual tasks. Interestingly, all of these studies share the requirement that participants process visual information in their peripheral visual field under demanding conditions of attention. This work has led us to propose that congenital auditory deprivation alters the gradient of visual attention from central to peripheral field by enhancing peripheral processing. This hypothesis was tested by adapting a search task from Lavie and colleagues in which the interference from distracting information on the search task provides a measure of attentional resources. These authors have established that during an easy central search for a target, any surplus attention remaining will involuntarily process a peripheral distractor that the subject has been instructed to ignore. Attentional resources can be measured by adjusting the difficulty of the search task to the point at which no surplus resources are available for the distractor. Through modification of this paradigm, central and peripheral attentional resources were compared in deaf and hearing individuals. Deaf individuals possessed greater attentional resources in the periphery but less in the center when compared to hearing individuals. Furthermore, based on results from native hearing signers, it was shown that sign language alone could not be responsible for these changes. We conclude that auditory deprivation from birth leads to compensatory changes within the visual system that enhance attentional processing of the peripheral visual field.

Competitive Interactions of Attentional Resources in Early Visual Cortex during Sustained Visuospatial Attention within or between Visual Hemifields: Evidence for the Different-hemifield Advantage

2014 ◽  
Vol 26 (5) ◽  
pp. 938-954 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sabrina Walter ◽  
Cliodhna Quigley ◽  
Matthias M. Mueller
Keyword(s):  
Visual Cortex ◽  
Visuospatial Attention ◽  
Competitive Interactions ◽  
Attentional Processing ◽  
Light Emitting ◽  
Attentional Resources ◽  
Early Visual Cortex ◽  
Processing Resources ◽  
Left And Right ◽  
Visual Hemifields

Performing a task across the left and right visual hemifields results in better performance than in a within-hemifield version of the task, termed the different-hemifield advantage. Although recent studies used transient stimuli that were presented with long ISIs, here we used a continuous objective electrophysiological (EEG) measure of competitive interactions for attentional processing resources in early visual cortex, the steady-state visual evoked potential (SSVEP). We frequency-tagged locations in each visual quadrant and at central fixation by flickering light-emitting diodes (LEDs) at different frequencies to elicit distinguishable SSVEPs. Stimuli were presented for several seconds, and participants were cued to attend to two LEDs either in one (Within) or distributed across left and right visual hemifields (Across). In addition, we introduced two reference measures: one for suppressive interactions between the peripheral LEDs by using a task at fixation where attention was withdrawn from the periphery and another estimating the upper bound of SSVEP amplitude by cueing participants to attend to only one of the peripheral LEDs. We found significantly greater SSVEP amplitude modulations in Across compared with Within hemifield conditions. No differences were found between SSVEP amplitudes elicited by the peripheral LEDs when participants attended to the centrally located LEDs compared with when peripheral LEDs had to be ignored in Across and Within trials. Attending to only one LED elicited the same SSVEP amplitude as Across conditions. Although behavioral data displayed a more complex pattern, SSVEP amplitudes were well in line with the predictions of the different-hemifield advantage account during sustained visuospatial attention.

scholarly journals The effect of background speech on attentive sound processing: A pupil dilation study

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paula Ríos López ◽  
Andreas Widmann ◽  
Aurélie Bidet-Caulet ◽  
Nicole Wetzel
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Processing ◽  
Duration Discrimination ◽  
Pupil Dilation ◽  
Auditory Task ◽  
Attentional Processes ◽  
Auditory Oddball ◽  
Attentional Resources ◽  
Sound Duration ◽  
Auditory Oddball Task ◽  
Focal Task

Everyday cognitive tasks are rarely performed in a quiet environment. Quite on the contrary, very diverse surrounding acoustic signals such as speech can involuntarily deviate our attention from the task at hand. Despite its tight relation to attentional processes, pupillometry remained a rather unexploited method to measure attention allocation towards irrelevant speech. In the present study, we registered changes in pupil diameter size to quantify the effect of meaningfulness of background speech upon performance in an attentional task. We recruited 41 native German speakers who had neither received formal instruction in French nor had extensive informal contact with this language. The focal task consisted of an auditory oddball task. Participants performed an animal sound duration discrimination task containing frequently repeated standard sounds and rarely presented deviant sounds while a story was read in German or (non-meaningful) French in the background. Our results revealed that, whereas effects of language meaningfulness on attention were not detectable at the behavioural level, participants’ pupil dilated more in response to the sounds of the auditory task when background speech was played in non-meaningful French compared to German, independent of sound type. This could suggest that semantic processing of the native language required attentional resources, which lead to fewer resources devoted to the processing of the sounds of the focal task. Our results highlight the potential of the pupil dilation response for the investigation of subtle cognitive processes that might not surface when only behaviour is measured.

scholarly journals Electrophysiological evidence for temporal dynamics associated with attentional processing in the zoom lens paradigm

PeerJ ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. e4538 ◽  
Author(s):  
Qing Zhang ◽  
Tengfei Liang ◽  
Jiafeng Zhang ◽  
Xueying Fu ◽  
Jianlin Wu
Keyword(s):  
Search Task ◽  
Attentional Focus ◽  
Visuospatial Attention ◽  
Zoom Lens ◽  
Lens Model ◽  
Attentional Processing ◽  
Attentional Resources ◽  
Electrophysiological Evidence ◽  
Attentional Scope ◽  
Concentric Circles

BackgroundVisuospatial processing requires wide distribution or narrow focusing of attention to certain regions in space. This mechanism is described by the zoom lens model and predicts an inverse correlation between the efficiency of processing and the size of the attentional scope. Little is known, however, about the exact timing of the effects of attentional scaling on visual searching and whether or not additional processing phases are involved in this process.MethodElectroencephalographic recordings were made while participants performed a visual search task under different attentional scaling conditions. Two concentric circles of different sizes, presented to the participants at the center of a screen modulated the attentional scopes, and search arrays were distributed in the space areas indicated by these concentric circles. To ensure consistent eccentricity of the search arrays across different conditions, we limited our studies to the neural responses evoked by the search arrays distributed in the overlapping region of different attentional scopes.ResultsConsistent with the prediction of the zoom lens model, our behavioral data showed that reaction times for target discrimination of search arrays decreased and the associated error rates also significantly decreased, with narrowing the attentional scope. Results of the event-related potential analysis showed that the target-elicited amplitude of lateral occipital N1, rather than posterior P1, which reflects the earliest visuospatial attentional processing, was sensitive to changes in the scaling of visuospatial attention, indicating that the modulation of the effect of changes in the spatial scale of attention on visual processing occurred after the delay period of P1. The N1 generator exhibited higher activity as the attentional scope narrowed, reflecting more intensive processing resources within the attentional focus. In contrast to N1, the amplitude of N2pc increased with the expansion of the attentional focus, suggesting that observers might further redistribute attentional resources according to the increased task difficulty.ConclusionThese findings provide electrophysiological evidence that the neural activity of the N1 generator is the earliest marker of the zoom lens effect of visual spatial attention. Furthermore, evidence from N2pc shows that there is also a redistribution of attentional resources after the action of the zoom lens mechanism, which allows for better perform of the search task in the context of low attentional resolution. On the basis of the timing of P1, N1, and N2pc, our findings provide compelling evidence that visuospatial attention processing in the zoom lens paradigm involves multi-stage dynamic processing.

scholarly journals Agency Improves Working Memory and Accelerates Visual and Attentional Processing

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rocio Loyola-Navarro ◽  
Cristóbal Moënne-Loccoz ◽  
Rodrigo Vergara ◽  
Alexandre Hyafil ◽  
Francisco Aboitiz ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Healthy Subjects ◽  
Evoked Potential ◽  
Stimulus Onset ◽  
Attentional State ◽  
Random Delay ◽  
Attentional Processing ◽  
Attentional Processes ◽  
Electroencephalographic Signals ◽  
Temporal Stimuli

Abstract Agency, understood as the ability of an organism to control stimuli onset, modulates perceptual and attentional functions. Since stimulus encoding is an essential component of working memory (WM), we conjectured that the perceptual process's agency would positively modulate WM. To corroborate this proposition, we tested twenty-five healthy subjects in a modified-Sternberg WM task under three stimuli presentation conditions: an unpredictable presentation of encoding stimulus, a self-initiated presentation of the stimulus, and self-initiation presentation with random-delay stimulus onset. Concurrently, we recorded the subjects' electroencephalographic signals during WM encoding. We found that the self-initiated condition was associated with better WM accuracy, and earlier latencies of N100 and P200 evoked potential components representing visual and attentional processes, respectively. Our work demonstrates that agency enhances WM performance and accelerates early visual and attentional processes deployed during WM encoding. We also found that self-initiation presentation correlates with an increased attentional state compared to the other two conditions, suggesting a role for temporal stimuli predictability. Our study remarks on the relevance of agency in sensory and attentional processing for WM.

scholarly journals Compatibility of Small Team Personalities in Computer-Based Tasks

Challenges ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Angeliki Antoniou
Keyword(s):  
Task Performance ◽  
Personality Assessment ◽  
Group Communication ◽  
Common Goal ◽  
Experimental Conditions ◽  
Cooperative Tasks ◽  
Computer Based ◽  
Small Team ◽  
And Task

There are works that study personality and task performance but there are no (or very few works) that study the balancing of personalities within teams that work together towards a common goal in computer-based tasks. This study investigates how personality compatibility in collaborative tasks affects performance, intra-group communication and participants’ emotions for computer-based tasks and introduces the challenges for research in this field. Using the DISC (dominance, inducement/influence, submission/steadiness, compliance) tool for personality assessment and team compatibility, 12 teams were created with either balanced or imbalanced personality compositions. Results showed statistical differences in emotions between the two experimental conditions and also differences in terms of time needed for the completion of the game. The present work showed the qualitative differences between cooperative tasks and revealed the challenges of studying further team compatibility for different tasks.

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