What characteristics of recasts facilitate accurate perception when overheard by true beginners?

2021 ◽  
pp. 136216882110575
Author(s):  
Nobuhiro Kamiya
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
Head Movements ◽  
Sentence Length ◽  
Common Belief ◽  
Video Clips ◽  
Accurate Perception ◽  
Phonological Errors ◽  
Lexical Errors ◽  
Improved Accuracy ◽  
Better Than

In this study, 118 native speakers of Japanese watched 48 separate video clips in which a teacher provided recasts on phonological or lexical errors to students in Portuguese, a language with which the participants were unfamiliar. In the video clips, six recast characteristics were manipulated: length, segmentation (segmented/whole), prosodic emphasis (stressed/non-stressed), intonation (declarative/interrogative), head movements (nodding/shaking), and gestures (beat/deictic/metaphoric). Participants judged whether or not the teacher had corrected errors and stated the reasons for their decisions. Multiple regressions extracted segmentation and gestures as being significant variables for both phonological and lexical errors. Precisely speaking, recasts were more likely to be accurately perceived as correction when they were provided in sentence-length discourse along with deictic gestures. Additionally, head-shaking and beat also contributed to improved accuracy of phonological errors. The analysis of their reasoning indicates that the participants actively compared errors with recasts when judging the presence of a recast. The overall results indicate that contrary to the common belief suggesting that shorter recasts are better than longer ones, when true beginners overhear recasts, they may find it easier to notice the corrections when they are provided in sentence-length discourse; as such recasts facilitate more accurate perceptions.

scholarly journals Towards estimating affective states in Virtual Reality based on behavioral data

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valentin Holzwarth ◽  
Johannes Schneider ◽  
Joshua Handali ◽  
Joy Gisler ◽  
Christian Hirt ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Reality ◽  
Adaptive Systems ◽  
User Study ◽  
Affective State ◽  
Head Movements ◽  
Affective States ◽  
Physical Demand ◽  
Perceived Performance ◽  
Sequential Administration ◽  
Better Than

AbstractInferring users’ perceptions of Virtual Environments (VEs) is essential for Virtual Reality (VR) research. Traditionally, this is achieved through assessing users’ affective states before and after being exposed to a VE, based on standardized, self-assessment questionnaires. The main disadvantage of questionnaires is their sequential administration, i.e., a user’s affective state is measured asynchronously to its generation within the VE. A synchronous measurement of users’ affective states would be highly favorable, e.g., in the context of adaptive systems. Drawing from nonverbal behavior research, we argue that behavioral measures could be a powerful approach to assess users’ affective states in VR. In this paper, we contribute by providing methods and measures evaluated in a user study involving 42 participants to assess a users’ affective states by measuring head movements during VR exposure. We show that head yaw significantly correlates with presence, mental and physical demand, perceived performance, and system usability. We also exploit the identified relationships for two practical tasks that are based on head yaw: (1) predicting a user’s affective state, and (2) detecting manipulated questionnaire answers, i.e., answers that are possibly non-truthful. We found that affective states can be predicted significantly better than a naive estimate for mental demand, physical demand, perceived performance, and usability. Further, manipulated or non-truthful answers can also be estimated significantly better than by a naive approach. These findings mark an initial step in the development of novel methods to assess user perception of VEs.

scholarly journals Analysis of Factors Affecting the Auditory Attention of Non-native Speakers in e-Learning Environments

2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. pp159-169
Author(s):  
Nikesh Bajaj ◽  
Jesús Requena Carrión ◽  
Francesco Bellotti ◽  
Riccardo Berta ◽  
Alessandro De Gloria
Keyword(s):  
Learning Environments ◽  
English Language ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Sentence Length ◽  
Language Abilities ◽  
Significant Drop ◽  
Factors Affecting ◽  
E Learning ◽  
Listening Task ◽  
The Impact

: One of the most striking characteristics of e-Learning audiences is their diversity. Native and non-native learners can be expected among such audiences and therefore, when developing e-Learning courses it is important to consider the impact of the language level on learning. Specifically, non-native learners are expected to have a diminished auditory perception compared to native ones and hence reduced attention capabilities that could result in a poorer performance. In this study, we assess the impact of linguistic and auditory factors on the attention of non-native learners, namely semanticity, sentence length and noise level. An English language platform mimicking real e-Learning environments is used and attention is quantified by measuring the number of English words correctly identified during a listening task. Our results show that changes in each factor affect the attention score significantly. Interestingly, the effects of semanticity are apparent in noiseless environment, but vanish in noisy ones.  Results also show that in noiseless environments, a change in the length of semantic sentences from small or medium to long causes a significant drop in the attention score. Our results demonstrate the importance of carefully accounting for linguistic and auditory factors when designing effective e-Learning courses, especially when they target global audiences and learners with different language abilities are expected.

The Costs of Transitivity: Thoughts on Larry Temkin’s Rethinking the Good

2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 462-478 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shelly Kagan
Keyword(s):  
Common Belief ◽  
Value Judgments ◽  
The Common ◽  
Better Than

In Rethinking the Good, Larry Temkin argues that the common belief in the transitivity of better than (all things considered) is incompatible with various other value judgments to which many of us are deeply committed; accordingly, we should take seriously the possibility that the better than relation is not, in fact, a transitive one. However, although Temkin is right, I think, about the mutual incompatibility of the beliefs in question, for the most part his examples don’t leave me inclined to deny transitivity. Nonetheless, there is one example, involving infinity, that does seem to me particularly troubling.

scholarly journals Trigonometric parallaxes of Planetary Nebulae

1997 ◽  
Vol 180 ◽  
pp. 40-45 ◽  
Author(s):  
H.C. Harris ◽  
C.C. Dahn ◽  
D.G. Monet ◽  
J.R. Pier
Keyword(s):  
Present Status ◽  
Planetary Nebulae ◽  
Future Prospects ◽  
Ccd Cameras ◽  
Trigonometric Parallaxes ◽  
Improved Accuracy ◽  
Central Stars ◽  
Better Than

The accuracy of parallaxes obtained with ground-based CCD cameras now often reaches or exceeds 0.5 milliarcseconds. This improved accuracy permits us to measure significant parallaxes and determine distances for the nearest planetary nebulae. At present, the central stars of 11 planetary nebulae have been observed as part of the USNO parallax program. We now have determined distances with accuracies better than 20 percent for four central stars and better than 50 percent for five more. This paper gives the present status of the program, a brief interpretation of the results, and future prospects.

scholarly journals The risks of mixing dependency lengths from sequences of different length

Glottotheory ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ramon Ferrer-i-Cancho ◽  
Haitao Liu
Keyword(s):  
Null Hypothesis ◽  
Empirical Distribution ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Sentence Length ◽  
The Other ◽  
Language Research ◽  
Varying Length ◽  
Syntactic Dependency ◽  
Better Than

AbstractMixing dependency lengths from sequences of different length is a common practice in language research. However, the empirical distribution of dependency lengths of sentences of the same length differs from that of sentences of varying length. The distribution of dependency lengths depends on sentence length for real sentences and also under the null hypothesis that dependencies connect vertices located in random positions of the sequence. This suggests that certain results, such as the distribution of syntactic dependency lengths mixing dependencies from sentences of varying length, could be a mere consequence of that mixing. Furthermore, differences in the global averages of dependency length (mixing lengths from sentences of varying length) for two different languages do not simply imply a priori that one language optimizes dependency lengths better than the other because those differences could be due to differences in the distribution of sentence lengths and other factors.

scholarly journals Implementing Recommendations for Introductory Biology by Writing a New Textbook

2013 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 106-116 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark J. Barsoum ◽  
Patrick J. Sellers ◽  
A. Malcolm Campbell ◽  
Laurie J. Heyer ◽  
Christopher J. Paradise
Keyword(s):  
Data Interpretation ◽  
Primary Data ◽  
Emergent Properties ◽  
Introductory Biology ◽  
Accurate Perception ◽  
Factual Content ◽  
Introductory Biology Course ◽  
Course Outcomes ◽  
Principles Of Learning ◽  
Better Than

We redesigned the undergraduate introductory biology course by writing a new textbook (Integrating Concepts in Biology [ICB]) that follows first principles of learning. Our approach emphasizes primary data interpretation and the utility of mathematics in biology, while de-emphasizing memorization. This redesign divides biology into five big ideas (information, evolution, cells, emergent properties, homeostasis), addressing each at five levels of organization (molecules, cells, organisms, populations, ecological systems). We compared our course outcomes with two sections that used a traditional textbook and were taught by different instructors. On data interpretation assessments administered periodically during the semester, our students performed better than students in the traditional sections (p = 0.046) and exhibited greater improvement over the course of the semester (p = 0.015). On factual content assessments, our students performed similarly to students in the other sections (p = 0.737). Pre- and postsemester assessment of disciplinary perceptions and self-appraisal indicate that our students acquired a more accurate perception of biology as a discipline and may have developed a more realistic evaluation of their scientific abilities than did the control students (p < 0.05). We conclude that ICB improves critical thinking, metacognition, and disciplinary perceptions without compromising content knowledge in introductory biology.

scholarly journals Morphological complexity in written L2 texts

2016 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 99-119 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vaclav Brezina ◽  
Gabriele Pallotti
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
English Learners ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Threshold Level ◽  
Sentence Length ◽  
Inflectional Morphology ◽  
Complexity Measures ◽  
Morphological Complexity

Morphological complexity (MC) is a relatively new construct in second language acquisition (SLA). After critically discussing existing approaches to calculating MC in first- and second-language acquisition research, this article presents a new operationalization of the construct, the Morphological Complexity Index (MCI). The MCI is applied in two case studies based on argumentative written texts produced by native and non-native speakers of Italian and English. Study 1 shows that morphological complexity varies between native and non-native speakers of Italian, and that it is significantly lower in learners with lower proficiency levels. The MCI is strongly correlated to proficiency, measured with a C-test, and also shows significant correlations with other measures of linguistic complexity, such as lexical diversity and sentence length. Quite a different picture emerges from Study 2, on advanced English learners. Here, morphological complexity remains constant across natives and non-natives, and is not significantly correlated to other text complexity measures. These results point to the fact that morphological complexity in texts is a function of speakers’ proficiency and the specific language under investigation; for some linguistic systems with a relatively simple inflectional morphology, such as English, learners will soon reach a threshold level after which inflectional diversity remains constant.

Extracting words from the speech stream at first exposure

2013 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 165-183 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ellenor Shoemaker ◽  
Rebekah Rast
Keyword(s):  
Target Word ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Lexical Item ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Exposure Study ◽  
Several Variables ◽  
Stages Of Learning ◽  
Novel Target ◽  
Better Than

The earliest stages of adult language acquisition have received increased attention in recent years (cf. Carroll, introduction to this issue). The study reported here aims to contribute to this discussion by investigating the role of several variables in the development of word recognition strategies during the very first hours of exposure to a novel target language (TL). Eighteen native speakers of French with no previous exposure to Polish were tested at intervals throughout a 6.5-hour intensive Polish course on their ability to extract target words from Polish sentences. Following Rast and Dommergues’ (2003) first exposure study, stimuli were designed to investigate the effect of three factors: the lexical transparency of the target word with respect to the native language (L1); the frequency of the target word in the input; the target word’s position in the sentence. Results suggest that utterance position plays an essential role in learners’ ability to recognize words in the signal at first exposure, indicating acute sensitivity to the edges of prosodic domains. In addition, transparent words (e.g. professor ‘professor’) were recognized significantly better than non-transparent words (e.g. lekarz ‘doctor’), suggesting that first exposure learners are highly dependent on L1 phonological forms. Furthermore, the frequency of a target word in the input did not affect performance, suggesting that at the very beginning stages of learning, the amount of exposure to a lexical item alone does not play a significant role in recognition.

scholarly journals Non-orthogonal version of the arbitrary polygonal C-grid and a new diamond grid

2013 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 6035-6074
Author(s):  
H. Weller
Keyword(s):  
Energy Conservation ◽  
Test Cases ◽  
Grid Structure ◽  
Equal Angle ◽  
Uniform Grids ◽  
Water Test ◽  
Cubed Sphere ◽  
Improved Accuracy ◽  
Better Than ◽  
Exact Energy

Abstract. Quasi-uniform grids of the sphere have become popular recently since they avoid parallel scaling bottlenecks associated with the poles of latitude-longitude grids. However quasi-uniform grids of the sphere are often non-orthogonal. A version of the C-grid for arbitrary non-orthogonal grids is presented which gives some of the mimetic properties of the orthogonal C-grid. Exact energy conservation is sacrificed for improved accuracy and the resulting scheme numerically conserves energy and potential enstrophy well. The non-orthogonal nature means that the scheme can be used on a cubed sphere. The advantage of the cubed sphere is that it does not admit the computational modes of the hexagonal or triangular C-grids. On various shallow-water test cases the non-orthogonal scheme on a cubed sphere has accuracy less than or equal to the orthogonal scheme on an orthogonal hexagonal icosahedron. A new diamond grid is presented consisting of quasi-uniform quadrilaterals which is more orthogonal than the equal-angle cubed sphere but with otherwise similar properties. It performs better than the cubed sphere in every way and should be used instead in codes which allow a flexible grid structure.

scholarly journals L1 and L2 reading skills in Dutch adolescents with a familial risk of dyslexia

PeerJ ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. e3895 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ellie R.H. van Setten ◽  
Wim Tops ◽  
Britt E. Hakvoort ◽  
Aryan van der Leij ◽  
Natasha M. Maurits ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Reading Fluency ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Familial Risk ◽  
Reaction Times ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Orthographic Transparency ◽  
L2 Reading ◽  
Pseudoword Reading ◽  
Reading And Spelling ◽  
Better Than

Background The present study investigated differences in reading and spelling outcomes in Dutch and English as a second language (ESL) in adolescents with a high familial risk of dyslexia, of whom some have developed dyslexia (HRDys) while others have not (HRnonDys), in comparison to a low familial risk control group without dyslexia (LRnonDys). This allowed us to investigate the persistence of dyslexia in the first language (L1) and the effect of dyslexia on the second language (L2), which has, in this case, a lower orthographic transparency. Furthermore, the inclusion of the HRnonDys group allowed us to investigate the continuity of the familial risk of dyslexia, as previous studies observed that the HRnonDys group often scores in between the HRDys and LRnonDys group, and whether these readers without reading deficits in Dutch, have more reading difficulties in ESL. Methods The data of three groups of adolescents were analyzed; 27 LRnonDys, 25 HRdys 25 HRnonDys. The mean age was 14;1 years; months, and 37 were male. All were native speakers of Dutch, attended regular secondary education (grade 7–10), and were non-native speakers of English. Using MANOVA the groups were compared on Dutch and English word reading fluency (WRF), spelling and vocabulary, Dutch pseudoword and loanword reading fluency, phonological awareness (PA), rapid automatized naming (RAN), and verbal short term and working memory. A repeated measures ANOVA was used to compare English and Dutch WRF, spelling and vocabulary directly within the three groups. Results The analyses revealed that the HRDys group had a deficit in both reading and spelling in Dutch and ESL. They also performed poorer than the LRnonDys group on all other measures. Effect sizes were especially large for pseudoword reading and the reaction times during the PA task. The HRnonDys group scored generally poorer than the LRnonDys group but this difference was only significant for Dutch pseudoword reading, PA reaction times and verbal short term memory. In general the HRDys and HRnonDys group scored similar in Dutch and English, except for English WRF where the HRDys group scored slightly better than expected based on their Dutch WRF. Discussion There was a high persistence of dyslexia. Adolescents with dyslexia had large impairments in reading and spelling, and reading related measures, both in Dutch and ESL. Despite high inter-individual differences, an overall three-step pattern was observed. Adolescents in the HRnonDys group scored in between the HRDys and LRnonDys group, supporting the polygenetic origin of dyslexia and the continuity of the familial risk of dyslexia. The lower orthographic transparency did not have a negative effect on L2 reading, spelling and vocabulary, both in the HRnonDys and HRDys group. The latter group performed slightly better than expected in L2, which may be a result of the massive exposure to English and high motivation to use English by adolescents.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document