A survey of narrative listening behaviors in 8-13-year-old children

Leisure reading confers significant benefits to children in both social and academic domains. However, the number of children who read for pleasure is decreasing and has been recently shown to drop off significantly between the ages of 8 and 9. Despite the rising popularity of audiobooks and podcasts, research on children listening to spoken stories remains in its infancy. Thus, the present study explores how children engage with these novel media. Fifty-two parents of children aged 8-13 years completed an online survey which asked about their children’s listening habits. Results showed that 74% of children listen to spoken stories, with the vast majority (92.5%) listening at least 1-2 times a week. While the survey revealed children are indeed engaging with both podcasts and audiobooks, being read aloud to continues to be the most popular format for story listening in this age group (77.4% of listeners). Across platforms, the genre most frequently listened to was fantasy stories (84.9%; more detailed descriptions of popular themes and sub-themes are described). In sum, access to technology is becoming an increasingly important part of children’s lives. The data described here provide a timely perspective and provide a basis for informed studies of listening engagement in children.

Robust effects of working memory demand during naturalistic language comprehension in language-selective cortex

A standard view of human language processing is that comprehenders build richly structured mental representations of natural language utterances, word by word, using computationally costly memory operations supported by domain-general working memory resources. However, three core claims of this view have been questioned, with some prior work arguing that (1) rich word-by-word structure building is not a core function of the language comprehension system, (2) apparent working memory costs are underlyingly driven by word predictability (surprisal), and/or (3) language comprehension relies primarily on domain-general rather than domain-specific working memory resources. In this work, we simultaneously evaluate all three of these claims using naturalistic comprehension in fMRI. In each participant, we functionally localize (a) a language-selective network and (b) a ‘multiple-demand’ network that supports working memory across domains, and we analyze the responses in these two networks of interest during naturalistic story listening with respect to a range of theory-driven predictors of working memory demand under rigorous surprisal controls. Results show robust surprisal-independent effects of word-by-word memory demand in the language network and no effect of working memory demand in the multiple demand network. Our findings thus support the view that language comprehension (1) entails word-by-word structure building using (2) computationally intensive memory operations that are not explained by surprisal. However, these results challenge (3) the domain-generality of the resources that support these operations, instead indicating that working memory operations for language comprehension are carried out by the same neural resources that store linguistic knowledge.Significance StatementThis study uses fMRI to investigate signatures of working memory (WM) demand during naturalistic story listening, using a broad range of theoretically motivated estimates of WM demand. Results support a strong effect of WM demand in language-selective brain regions but no effect of WM demand in “multiple demand” regions that have previously been associated with WM in non-linguistic domains. We further show evidence that WM effects in language regions are distinct from effects of word predictability. Our findings support a core role for WM in incremental language processing, using WM resources that are specialized for language.

Moment-by-moment tracking of naturalistic learning and its underlying hippocampo-cortical interactions

Humans form lasting memories of stimuli that were only encountered once. This naturally occurs when listening to a story, however it remains unclear how and when memories are stored and retrieved during story-listening. Here, we first confirm in behavioral experiments that participants can learn about the structure of a story after a single exposure and are able to recall upcoming words when the story is presented again. We then track mnemonic information in high frequency activity (70–200 Hz) as patients undergoing electrocorticographic recordings listen twice to the same story. We demonstrate predictive recall of upcoming information through neural responses in auditory processing regions. This neural measure correlates with behavioral measures of event segmentation and learning. Event boundaries are linked to information flow from cortex to hippocampus. When listening for a second time, information flow from hippocampus to cortex precedes moments of predictive recall. These results provide insight on a fine-grained temporal scale into how episodic memory encoding and retrieval work under naturalistic conditions.

Functional Brain Connectivity During Narrative Processing Relates to Transportation and Story Influence

Engaging with narratives involves a complex array of cognitive and affective processes. These processes make stories persuasive in ways that standard arguments are not, though the underlying reasons for this remain unclear. Transportation theory proposes a potential explanation for this: narratives are processed in a way which makes individuals feel immersed in the world of a story, which in turn leads people to resonate emotionally with the events of the story. Recent fMRI studies have shown that the posterior medial cortex (PMC) and anterior insula (AI) play important roles in understanding the meaning of stories and experiencing the feelings they produce. In this study, we aimed to explore the AI’s and PMC’s role in narrative processing by measuring their functional connectivity with the rest of the brain during story listening, and how connectivity changes as a function of narrative transportation and the persuasiveness of the story. We analyzed data from 36 right-handed subjects who listened to two stories, obtained from podcasts, inside the fMRI scanner. After the scan, subjects were asked a series of questions, including a measure of how transported into the story they felt, how likely they would be to donate to causes related to the messages of the stories. We used searchlight multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA) to classify functional connectivity maps using seeds in both the AI and PMC and to compare these maps between participants who differed in transportation and prosocial intention. We found that connectivity to various regions successfully distinguished between high and low ratings on each of these behavioral measures with accuracies over 75%. However, only one pattern of connectivity was consistent across both stories: PMC-inferior frontal gyrus connectivity successfully distinguished high and low ratings of narrative transportation in both stories. All other findings were not consistent across stories. Instead, we found that patterns of connectivity may relate more to the specific content of the story rather than to a universal way in which narratives are processed.

‘I start again with every story, listening’: Sound, silence and voice in two short stories by David Constantine

This article examines sound and the sonic aspects of voice and silence in two short stories by David Constantine – ‘Tea at the Midland’ and ‘Under the Dam’ – to show that they are not only relevant for an analysis of his poetry but also for his short stories. Employing Jonathan Sterne’s definition of sonic culture as a theoretical starting point, the phonotextual (Garrett Stewart) multiplicity of patterns in each text is seen as an alternative to the protagonists-focalizers’ ‘silenced’ situation and is associated with their desired joys in life. In ‘Tea at the Midland’ the withheld soundscape (R. Murray Schafer) of the bay can only be watched but not heard. In the opening of ‘Under the Dam’ the auscultator (Melba Cuddy-Keane) Seth is completely oblivious of his sonic surroundings and effaces sound on the story level, but the narrator reintroduces sound on the level of discourse. Sylvia Mieszkowski’s distinction between the sound of the text and the sound in the text constitutes one of the fundamental concepts of the analysis. The findings and conclusions are interpreted in the context of Constantine’s own poetics as regards the writing of short stories. The sounds of the two short stories reinforce, through metrical, rhythmic, syntactic and sound patterns, the scenes’ withheld sonic qualities that are only perceived visually and sensed emotionally by the protagonists. These soundscapes represent alternative worlds desired by the protagonists in ‘Under the Dam’ and by the woman in ‘Tea at the Midland’.

Walking the map & tracing the territory

"Walking the Map & Tracing the Territory" is a locative media project created to investigate the relationship between the visual representation and aural/physical experience of space through the roles of mapper and walker. Both forms of knowing a space have biases that privilege certain aspects of space. While visual representation on a map totalizes space and emphasizes the spatial relationship between objects, aural/physical experience emphasizes the evanescent quality of walking and narrative. This exploration has led to the idea that space is physical but also represented, experienced and recreated constantly through its use. The project has drawn on the work of various locative artists such as Janet Cardiff and Rimini Protokoll to understand the way that story, listening and walking can inform one's perception of space. The work of Michel de Certeau has also been used to understand how one creates space through the subjective negotiation of place. Finally, the creation process ofthe installation, using consumer electronics, open-source software and programming languages has also been used as a way of looking at how space is articulated through this technology and how it mediates the mapper's and walker's perception of map and territory.

Walking the map & tracing the territory

"Walking the Map & Tracing the Territory" is a locative media project created to investigate the relationship between the visual representation and aural/physical experience of space through the roles of mapper and walker. Both forms of knowing a space have biases that privilege certain aspects of space. While visual representation on a map totalizes space and emphasizes the spatial relationship between objects, aural/physical experience emphasizes the evanescent quality of walking and narrative. This exploration has led to the idea that space is physical but also represented, experienced and recreated constantly through its use. The project has drawn on the work of various locative artists such as Janet Cardiff and Rimini Protokoll to understand the way that story, listening and walking can inform one's perception of space. The work of Michel de Certeau has also been used to understand how one creates space through the subjective negotiation of place. Finally, the creation process ofthe installation, using consumer electronics, open-source software and programming languages has also been used as a way of looking at how space is articulated through this technology and how it mediates the mapper's and walker's perception of map and territory.

Hubungan Manajemen Tindakan Kelas Terhadap Hasil Belajar Bahasa Indonesia

Improving the quality of education will be achieved if the teaching and learning process by the teacher held in the classroom is truly effective and useful for achieving the expected knowledge, attitudes, and skills. Because basically, the teaching and learning process is the core of the overall education process, while the teaching and learning process is carried out in many formal activities in the classroom where the teacher is one of the important factors in determining the success of the teaching and learning process in the classroom. Therefore teachers are required to be able to improve their roles and competencies, competent teachers will be more able to create an effective learning environment and will be more capable of Classroom Action Management so that student learning outcomes are at an optimal level. The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of classroom action management on Indonesian learning outcomes, the subject of story listening skills in SD Negeri 1 Kaobula. The method used in this research is quantitative descriptive which is used as a research design that clearly and clearly describes the research variables in the form of numbers and statistics. The population of this research is the fifth-grade students of SD Negeri 1 Kaobula which consists of 24 students. Based on the results of the study, it is concluded that the influence between the X variable (classroom action management) and the Y variable (Civics learning outcomes) has a strong influence between the two variables. If we look at the amount of oxy obtained, namely: 0, 620 it turns out to be between 0.40. 0.60. It can be stated that the correlation between variable X and variable Y is a relatively strong influence. Thus, the authors can simply give an interpretation of the oxy, namely that there is a significant positive effect between variable X and variable Y.

Synchronized Neural Activity Indexes Engagement with Spoken Stories under Acoustic Masking

Older people with hearing problems often experience difficulties understanding speech in the presence of background sound. As a result, they may disengage in social situations, which has been associated with negative psychosocial health outcomes. Measuring listening (dis-)engagement during challenging listening has received little attention thus far. We recruit normal-hearing human adults (both sexes) and investigate how speech intelligibility and engagement during naturalistic story listening is affected by the level of acoustic masking (12-talker babble). In Experiment 1, we observed that word-report scores were above 80% for all but the lowest SNR (-3 dB SNR) we tested, at which performance dropped to 54%. In Experiment 2, we calculated inter-subject correlation (ISC) in electroencephalography (EEG) data to identify dynamic spatial patterns of shared neural activity evoked by the stories. ISC followed a similar overall quadratic pattern as intelligibility data, however comparing ISC and intelligibility directly demonstrated that word-report performance declined more strongly with decreasing SNR compared to ISC. Observing significant ISC despite the presence of background noise suggests that participants were able to remain engaged despite missing segments of the story during especially difficult SNRs. Our work provides a novel approach to observe speech intelligibility and listener engagement using ecologically valid spoken materials which can be used to investigate (dis)engagement in older adults with hearing impairment.

CLASSROOM ACTION MANAGEMENT RELATIONSHIP TOWARD INDONESIAN LEARNING OUTCOMES

Improving the quality of education will be achieved if the teaching and learning process by the teacher held in the classroom is truly effective and useful for achieving the expected knowledge, attitudes, and skills. Because basically, the teaching and learning process is the core of the overall education process, while the teaching and learning process is carried out in many formal activities in the classroom where the teacher is one of the important factors in determining the success of the teaching and learning process in the classroom. Therefore teachers are required to be able to improve their roles and competencies, competent teachers will be more able to create an effective learning environment and will be more capable of Classroom Action Management so that student learning outcomes are at an optimal level. The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of classroom action management on Indonesian learning outcomes, the subject of story listening skills in SD Negeri 1 Kaobula. The method used in this research is quantitative descriptive which is used as a research design that clearly and clearly describes the research variables in the form of numbers and statistics. The population of this research is the fifth-grade students of SD Negeri 1 Kaobula which consists of 24 students. Based on the results of the study, it is concluded that the influence between the X variable (classroom action management) and the Y variable (Civics learning outcomes) has a strong influence between the two variables. If we look at the amount of oxy obtained, namely: 0, 620 it turns out to be between 0.40. 0.60. It can be stated that the correlation between variable X and variable Y is a relatively strong influence. Thus, the authors can simply give an interpretation of the oxy, namely that there is a significant positive effect between variable X and variable Y.