Is anybody listening? The nature of second language listening in integrated listening-to-summarize tasks

Integrated test tasks, such as listening-to-speak or reading-to-write, are increasingly used in second language assessment despite relatively limited empirical insights into what they assess. Most research on integrated tasks has primarily focused on the productive skills involved; studies exploring the receptive skills mostly investigated tasks with reading input. Little is known about the nature of listening comprehension in integrated listening-to-write or listening-to-speak tasks. This study therefore investigates the listening construct underlying integrated tasks with oral input and its effect on summary accuracy. Eight listening-to-summarize tasks (four listening-to-speak, four listening-to-write) were administered to 72 Thai-L1, English-L2 students. Sixty participants provided their views on sources of listening difficulty through post-task questionnaires. Twelve participants produced stimulated recalls on their listening comprehension processing. The analyses of the recalls, combined with participants’ listening notes and oral/written summaries, revealed participants’ use of several cognitive listening processes and their monitoring through (meta)cognitive strategies, functioning interactively and interdependently in complex ways. The use of listening processes and strategies varied between tasks with different listening inputs, partly owing to differences in the passages’ linguistic difficulty (as perceived by the participants). However, the successful application of these processes and strategies (and their combinations) proved to be a prerequisite for producing accurate summaries.

The Role of Event Related Potentials in Pre-Comprehension Processing of Consumers to Marketing Logos

Background: In human behavior study, by peering directly into the brain and assessing distinct patterns, evoked neurons and neuron spike can be more understandable by taking advantages of accurate brain analysis. Objectives: We investigated the role of Event Related Potentials (ERPs) in pre-comprehension processing of consumers to marketing logos.. Materials & Methods: In the framework of an experimental design, twenty-six right-handed volunteers (13 men, 13 women) participated in 2013 in the University of Tabriz. An individual task with a presentation of familiar vs. unfamiliar logos was designed. Stimuli were displayed on a monitor controlled by a PC using the Mitsar® stimulus presentation system PsyTask. Statistical analyses of ERPs data were analyzed by repeated measures ANOVA. Results: Our results showed, when subjects were dealing with familiar logos, higher peak amplitude for the N1 component in right hemisphere of the brain can be observed. These variations on averages of early components of ERPs in occipital lobe can be referred to the pre-perceptual brain activities. Conclusion: Investigating early components of ERP can be utilized further as an effective factor in prediction of the consumers ‘preference particularly in neuromarketing field.

Comparing explanations for the Complexity Principle: evidence from argument realization

abstractThe likelihood with which language users insert optional words or morphemes that explicitly mark syntactic structure tends to increase in complex grammatical environments. This positive correlation between explicitness and complexity, best known as the Complexity Principle, has been observed for a multitude of case studies in both naturally occurring language and experimental settings. Researchers have sought the explanation for this Complexity Principle in three different domains: cognitive comprehension processing, the language channel, and cognitive production processing. Based on these accounts, we formulate predictions regarding the action radius of the Complexity Principle in the alternation between a direct and prepositional object of the Dutch verb zoeken ‘search’. These predictions are tested against corpus observations. Our results confirm accounts according to which optional elements indicate production difficulties, as well as those that explain the Principle as a result of restrictions on the language channel. In addition, our results indicate that the Principle is sensitive to context-determined restrictions that are the result of its underlying cause. This may present a possible caveat for alternation studies.