Word Learning in Two Modalities

A majority of research on language development has focused on examining spoken word learning and its role in the development of language, but there has been more limited research investigating the role of gesture and signed words in language development. This study investigated the impact of modality of word presentation on the learning of an associated meaning, the impact of modality of meaning presentation on the learning of an associated word, as well as the impact of crossing modalities on the speed and accuracy of learned associations. Participants viewed short videos of a person saying a non-word or making a sign paired with either a picture or a written definition. Outcome variables were accuracy and response times for recall of meanings. The analysis of accuracy revealed a significant interaction between presentation modality and meaning modality. Accuracy in the nonword-picture condition was at ceiling and thus, significantly greater than accuracy in the nonword-definition condition and nonsign-picture condition. Analysis of response times found the main effect of meaning format to be statistically significant. Participants were significantly slower when meaning was presented as a definition compared to when it was presented as a picture. These results suggest that meaning associations with novel signs are learned equally fast and accurate as those associated with novel words. Additionally, they suggest that people recall imageable meanings faster than definitions. Finally, results also indicate that typically functioning adults maintain a robust ability for learning word-picture associations likely developed in childhood.

Effects of Preparation Time for Two Quantitative Measures of Narrative Production

Narratives are important for language assessment at the level of discourse. To investigate the effect of preparation time narratives were collected from 19 third graders, 19 eighth graders, and 19 college students. In one condition, all subjects saw a picture and told a story; in a second one they saw a picture and were instructed to wait for 1 min. before telling a story. Students also generated a story without a picture and with no instructions to wait. Measures of narrative length and mean length of communication unit were analyzed to assess the effects of preparation time. Narratives produced under the Instructions to Wait condition were longer and their mean length of communication unit was longer than narratives produced under the No Instructions to Wait condition, for all 3 age groups. Narratives generated without picture stimuli, however, were longer than those produced under either picture condition. Clinical implications for those who work with children with language and learning disabilities are discussed.

Role of Pictorial Cues in Young Children's Distinguishing Self-Performed from Self-Imagined Actions

32 4– and 5–yr.-olds participated in a series of performed and imagined actions and a memory interview. Children in the Picture condition answered questions accompanied by pictures of actions whereas children in the Verbal condition received only the verbal cues. Children in the Picture condition performed as well as children in the Verbal condition when classifying performed and new actions but had more difficulty classifying imagined actions. Results suggest that retrieval cues (pictures) did not enhance children's discrimination of self-performed and self-imagined actions.

Test Expectancy and Encoding of Pictures and Words

Undergraduates were shown pictures or corresponding labels and then were tested for recognition either in the same mode or in a cross-over mode. Significantly more items were recognized in the picture-picture condition than in the picture-word and word-picture conditions. Informing subjects in advance of the change in modality significantly improved picture-word performance.

On the Significance of “Double Encoding” for the Superior Recall of Pictures to Names

Ten-year-old children who were shown pictures of objects immediately preceded by the object's name recalled the material no better than those exposed to the names of the stimuli alone. Both conditions yielded significantly poorer retention than those in which pictures alone were presented or pictures followed by their names. A second study replicated this result. In addition this demonstrated, by a picture and name recognition task, that the effects could not be due to subjects in the “name prior to picture” condition ignoring the pictorial component. These results were interpreted as contradicting the “double encoding” explanation of the superiority of pictures to names in free recall. Parallel visual and verbal encoding of a pictured object does not facilitate retention unless the verbal cue is actively elicited from the subject by the stimulus. The implications of this result for other studies which have employed either simultaneous or sequential presentation of pictures and names are briefly discussed.