text:
User:Hdgallant

I'm a third year Psychology student at Dalhousie University.

Week Twelve: April 4-8, 2011
Wow time flies! I’m not sure who invented that saying but they were right! This is my last blog post, which means the term is almost done (yah!). For this post we were instructed to talk about the course in general. I’ll be honest; I was a little hesitant, given that I didn’t receive my final grade yet! Haha. But here it goes… Let’s start with the positive. I loved the material and how we covered multiple topics within psycholinguistics. I especially liked the lectures on brain damage (aphasia), bilingualism, and developmental language acquisition. Other aspects of the course that I liked were the debate and the concept of the wikiversity page. Some aspects I would modify include: having the debates done earlier in the course. I found it extremely stressful to have the debates posted and worked on in the last couple of weeks. I’m not a last minute person nor do I work well under pressure, so it was really difficult! In regards to the wikiversity chapter, I found too much of our mark relied on the project. I also didn’t like how it was made public to others (and fellow students) before it was graded. I would have liked to keep it confidential then release all of them at the same time at the end of the semester. Perhaps we could have made it into a mini event. Say a mass release of PSYO 3910’s Wikiversity Chapter? We could have planned an event in the psychology lab where each computer could display a different page. Fellow students and staff could walk around and check out all the pages. Overall I really enjoyed the course. I liked that it wasn’t your traditional lecture/exam course. I appreciate that technology was incorporated into something that is strongly based on history and science.

Thank you for a wonderful semester, Heather

Week Ten: March 21-25, 2011
Bilingualism has always been an area of interest for me; perhaps because I'm slightly jealous that I'm not bilingual myself. Throughout elementary school I attended French classes, despite my will. I learned how to count to 100, the colours of the rainbow and the animals on a farm. But lets face it, unless you have an interest in actually learning a language, and practice what you learn, you won't retain much, or at least I didn't. At the age of 24, I look back to grade 10. That is when I finally had the choice if I wanted to continue with my French course. Of course being the stubborn Taurus I am, I choose geography over French. Now that I'm older I regret not sticking with it. I plan to master the French language one day.. unfortunately that day isn't today. In this weeks lecture we talked about L1 versus L2. We discussed the consequences (or lack there of) of learning two languages at once. Originally I worried about language and cognitive development delays caused by confusion. I'm pleased to know what there is no harm to having a child learn two languages from a young age. I plan to enroll my children in French immersion school at a young age and hopefully by then I'll understand the language myself! They may resist when they're young, but they'll thank me one day :)

Until next time, Heather

Week Nine: March 14-18, 2011
Have you ever thought about something and wondered, where did I learn that? You know you do it... but you don't remember anyone specifically teaching you? For me it's riding a bike. I know how to ride a bike, yet I have no recallable memory of someone explicitly teaching me. I'm sure we all have these situations. Another one for me is the use of motherese. As soon as I'm around an infant, without a doubt I begin to use infant directed speech. Motherese is essentially infant directed speech. It involves slower, shorter and simpler speech. It usually involves more exaggerations in intonation, and the use of grammatically well-formed words. The important question remains why do we do it? Well..I don't know. If I had to guess I would relate it back to learning theory. We've been exposed to other adults using motherese so we imitate. Also, I always find that I can hold an infants attention longer when I talk with a higher pitch and more intonation. This weekend I began to wonder, are we helping infants with language acquisition by using infant directed speech, or do we just look silly to other adults? According to Matychuk (2005) infant directed speech is seen a lot more by mothers than fathers. Matychuk argues that it is the "interactive negotiation", that is critical of language development, rather and infant directed speech directly. Therefore, it is safe to say that although you may hold the attention of an infant longer with the use of motherese, children will develop language at the same rate as those whose parents do not use motherese. I would love to say that I won't do it any longer... but it seems to come so naturally when you're round infants who are so happy and innocent!

Until next time, Heather

Reference: Matychuk, P. (2005). The role of child-directed speech in language acquisition: A case study. Language Sciences, 27(3), 301-379. doi:10.1016/j.langsci.2004.04.004

Week Eight: March 7-11, 2011
It's not to say that I don't enjoy learning about syntax and phonology, however I found this weeks material a lot more interesting! In this weeks lecture we talked about the different types of gestures that are used with speech (such as emblems, iconics, and beats) and why we use gestures. Growing up I remember my mother telling me don't talk with your arms crossed. She said it implied to people that I wasn't interested in what they were saying. Whether or not this is true, I do agree that gestures add a lot to speech. After the lecture I became more aware of my own gestures as well as others' gestures (nerdy? a little!). I realized that they change depending on whom you are talking to and the subject you are talking about. For example, my gestures changed when speaking to one of my professors compared to when I was speaking to my best friend, even though the subject was the same in this case (good ol' statistics). This makes sense when we consider the impact body language plays on communication. I’ve heard that 90% of communication is non-verbal. Now whether this is true is up for debate but I would argue that body language plays a big role in communication. This led to the thought of how do we learn aspects of communication such as gestures and body language? I suppose it’s like grammar, we learn from our environment. After all, most of us (myself included) did not receive a formal grammar class until grade 5 or so. But surely I knew how to use grammar before grade 5! After all, the thought of learning to communicate via those around us, whether it is verbal or non-verbal, is supported by the case of Genie, the girl who was deprived of language until she was 13 years old.

Until next time, Heather

Week Seven: February 28- March 4, 2011
This weeks lecture was really interesting and involved the concept of speech production. We discussed a topic I am very familiar with and have personal experience with, speech errors! We all make simple errors such as blending two words together, exchanging the place of words, or substituting one word for another (usually the opposite meaning). During the lecture I couldn't help but wonder why do we make these errors? What is it that actually causes these errors? I think it would be fascinating to run an fMRI scan while someone accidentally makes these errors, however I don't know how feasible that would be. I also began to think about a phenomenon that I have found interesting for many years, the tip of the tongue phenomenon. Although I'm sure it would fit better within a discussion on memory, it still involves the process of producing speech (or lack there of!). How is it that we cannot think of a specific piece of information, yet can recall some correct information such as the first letter or even how many syllables are in the word!? This actually happened to me last night. I was trying to recall the name of an artist and couldn't think of it for the life of me. I knew his name ended with -las and I could even picture how his name was written on the CD cover! After eventually giving up I recalled the name! That has got to be the greatest feeling :)

Until next time, Heather

P.S. In case you were wondering, the artist's name was Yiannis Kapoulas :)

Week Five: February 7-11, 2011
Growing up you hear all kinds of myths about anything and everything. One myth I remember hearing is “you only use 10% of your brain”. I remember thinking to myself how smart would we be if we could use more than 10%?! Well… I now know this is a myth. Staying on topic, this week we discussed semantics in the brain, an area that I’ve done a lot of research in due to my Wikiversity chapter. As explained by Dr. Newman, and the numerous amounts of research articles I’ve sifted through, the brain is not clearly defined like a well thought-out city. Although researchers have identified certain areas that more activate for certain functions, there is a lot of overlap and grey areas. This made me question, how will neurological research change in my lifetime? After all, a lot of the research that is available today, such as PET and fMRI scans, is fairly new technologies. I’m really excited to see how the research field will evolve in the next twenty years! And more importantly I’m excited to see how these technologies will improve our understanding of psycholinguistics and other fields of psychology. We often look back on Freud and other early psychologists and question their logic, but will there come a time that we questions the logic of today? I think it’s naïve to say we wont!

Until next time, Heather

Week Four: January 31- February 4, 2011
Living in Canada it is not surprising that Mother Nature left her mark this week. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it!) this left us who live on the Atlantic coast with a short week. The week became even shorter for Dalhousie University students due to a school holiday on the Friday. Luckily Monday’s lecture provided me with insight to a topic I enjoy, morphology. We defined a morpheme, discussed the different types of morphemes, and explored other languages such as ASL. What I found fascinating though is the past tense debate. Essentially you are asking if regular and irregular verbs are represented similarly or differently in the brain. I suppose one way researchers investigate this theory is by examining aphasic patients. After conducting a short search I found endless research papers investigating this very question! Continuing on the concept of irregular verbs I began to think about how the English language is evolving. For example, in the last few years Facebook and text messaging have become very popular. How would one refer to these nouns (which can be used as verbs) in the past tense? I “Facebooked” you? I “texted” you? Or I sent you a “text” message. I think some of these questions will be addressed in the upcoming lectures when we discuss words… or I hope!

Until next time, Heather

Week Three: January 24-28, 2011
In my second year of university I took a course called "Introduction to Linguistics". On the first day of class my professor said that the English language lacks history, is full of contradictions and exceptions, and is one of the most boring languages to study. Despite her negativism, I stayed in the class. Being in this psycholinguistic class I began to wonder if she was correct. This week we talked about acoustic phonetics, and more specifically elisions. I tried to imagine myself as someone learning the English language and having to understand the rules and exceptions of the language. For example, the word vegetable... Why is it what it is? It has no relation to the object we call a table, and even worse it has sounds eliminated when pronouncing it (elisions)! As I pondered this thought, I had a new respect for those who attempt to understand the complex English language as a second language. I have heard that English is one of the most difficult languages to learn, of course this is simply through hear say, but I wonder if it's true. From a psychological perspective, is one language more difficult to learn than another? I would assume it depends on how close the language is to your first language. What is the psychological impact of learning multiple languages? This is definitely something I will research and report back on.

Until next time, Heather

Week Two: January 17-21, 2011
This week's lectures covered a lot of different topics. We began the week by discussing language and the brain, covering topics such as lateralization, aphasia, and neuroplasticity. I have a general understanding of aphasia, but I never realized how many different types of aphasia there are to study based on the site of lesion. After this lecture I began to wonder, how bilinguals are affected by aphasia? Dr. Newman mentioned that the effects vary among cases however; I would love to look into specific case studies to learn more! Later in the week I learned a valuable skill that I wish I learned years ago. Dr. Newman explained a more effective format to read an academic journal article. Contrary to believe you don’t necessarily want to start with the introduction. (It seems a little backwards, I know, but it work!). I spent the weekend researching articles for a couple of papers, and his suggestion of reading the results and the method prior to the introduction and discussion really worked! Now if only I had learned that first year! The week ended with an introduction to phonetics and phonology. We discussed the difference between the two and touched upon one of my favourite studies, the wug test. The wug test was an experiment conducted by Jean Berko Gleason in 1958. This experiment relates to our discussion last week in that language is innate and learned through observational learning. Children are never taught that the plural of the non-word “wug” is “wugs” with the allomorph /z/, yet they simply know how to apply the rules of English.

Until next time, Heather

Week One: January 10-14, 2011
Well…I might as well be honest from the start. When I registered for psycholinguistics I didn’t think I would be all that interested, however, I was highly mistaken! This week’s lectures produced so many questions (which hopefully I’ll be able to answer one day)! During the second lecture we spoke about Kanzi, a Bonobo chimpanzee that communicates via a lexigram keyboard. Although highly impressive in itself, the part that amazed me is how he was able to learn language simply by being exposed to his mother’s learning experience. I suppose this relates the theory that we, humans, are born with an innate ability to learn language. After all, our children are exposed to language everyday. Perhaps this is a larger factor for toddlers learning to speak than their parents attempting to teach them specific words? In addition, this lecture made me think of the mental capacity of animals such as Kanzi. Dr. Newman mentioned that Bonobo chimpanzees are capable of learning how to write and even set fires! Clearly this should be alarming for all of us. It’s amazing that we can teach these animals however, I question if there is an ethical aspect that we are failing to see. Or even on a more basic level, what is the long-term harm in teaching these animals. Will we reach a point where Bonobo chimpanzees will be able to teach other Bonobo chimpanzees? If so, what happens if they are released into the wild with that mental knowledge? I do have a strong appreciation for research however, I question our impact on the future.

Until next time, Heather Gallant

title: User:Hdgallant


text:
User talk:Hdgallant

 Hello Hdgallant, and welcome to Wikiversity! If you need help, feel free to visit my talk page, or contact us and ask questions. After you leave a comment on a talk page, remember to sign and date; it helps everyone follow the threads of the discussion. The signature icon in the edit window makes it simple. All users are expected to abide by our Privacy policy, Civility policy, and the Terms of Use while at Wikiversity.

To get started, you may

 * Take a guided tour and learn to edit.
 * Visit a (kind of) random project.
 * Browse Wikiversity, or visit a portal corresponding to your educational level: pre-school, primary, secondary, tertiary, non-formal education.
 * Find out about research activities on Wikiversity.

 * Read an introduction for teachers and find out how to write an educational resource for Wikiversity.
 * Give feedback about your initial observations
 * Discuss Wikiversity issues or ask questions at the colloquium.
 * Chat with other Wikiversitans on #wikiversity-en.

And don't forget to explore Wikiversity with the links to your left. Be bold to contribute and to experiment with the sandbox or your userpage, and see you around Wikiversity! If you're a twitter user, please follow http://twitter.com/Wikiversity. --Ottava Rima (talk) 17:15, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

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title: User talk:Hdgallant


text:
User:Aslwin

I am a fourth year psychology major at Dalhousie University and I am from Moncton, New Brunswick. I have extensive experience working with special needs children (mainly autism) and hope to get into the Speech Language Pathology program at Dalhousie so that I can further help children as it pertains to speech disorders.

Blog Post 1: January 17th, 2011
The first couple weeks of this course have taught me exactly how little I know about the area of language, its formation and its perception. Having always swayed away from the neuroscience aspect of psychology for the majority of my degree, it will be interesting to see how I deal with “all this brain stuff”! Instead of focusing on this week’s covered material as food for thought, I’m going to take another route. Having been confined to my bed all weekend thanks to the flu, I took this opportunity to view some youtube videos on Aphasia- the topic I will be covering. I know very little about the subject, but am highly interested in it and being a visual learner, youtube works wonders for concreting concepts into my brain. These videos clearly showed the difference between Wernicke’s Aphasia and Broca’s Aphasia, and the difficulties associated with both. What I found so intriguing about these patients was how “in good spirits’ they seemed to be. Despite all of the frustrations that are associated with loss of effective communication with the world, they seemed relatively at ease. If you are interested, check them out! Some personal favourites of mine: “Tono Tono”, and “Broca’s Aphasia Sarah Scott”. The first is of an older man who responds to questions with “Tono”, and the second is of a teenage girl who suffered a stroke and now has Broca’s Aphasia. Sarah’s videos are quite interesting in that it shows an initial video, and then a follow up video in which she has made quite a bit of progress after therapy. I hope you enjoy!

Blog Post 2: January 24th, 2011
This week we delved into the brain and all of the areas involved in language. I found it fascinating that we are able to localize functions to different areas in the brain, save for some interconnecting functions. In my time working with special needs children, I encountered many with speech problems or the inability to speak at all. In these situations I was responsible for behaviour modification or I simply acted as a means of respite for the parent. I always understood what I was responsible for doing with the clients but I never looked too much into the methods that I was using. Learning more about the brain has made me re-evaluate these experiences. For example, one of my main cases was working with a nine year old severely autistic girl who was completely non-verbal, and had a vocabulary of about five signing words (her favourite being ‘more’ in reference to candies!). I regularly used the PECS book with her as an alternate form of communication. A PECS book is a fairly durable book with pictures of everyday items or emotions stuck into place with Velcro, with the point being that the non-verbal client can flip it open if she wanted to go for a drive, and pick out the picture of the car to indicate so. I understood that this was her way of communication but I, for some reason, never explored the idea of what may be going on in her brain. Looking retrospectively at this experience has helped me solidify the idea of language in its different forms being of use to people. Although unable to produce speech, she was able to understand basic commands and questions about what she wanted (to which she would respond through use of the PECS book) which would suggest that she had at least a partially functioning auditory-sensory pathway. So then her impairment must have been in a non-functioning motor pathway… or is this model of language production inappropriate for studying language impairments in Autistic individuals?

Blog Post 3: January 31st, 2011
Having left last week’s topics covering things such as prosody, intonation, and stress syllables, I am glad to be able to study in public again free of someone laughing at my sounding out words from every example given. Don’t laugh, you’ve all done it.

This week I’m going to focus on the subject of reading. Reading, for University students, is a necessity. It is something that becomes second nature, and as such it can easily be forgotten how complex the process of reading can be, and how it poses problems for so many around the world. For example, at a very basic level, illiteracy or inability to read affects people’s ability to drive. “Stop”, street names, “Yield” signs: An inability to read these makes driving extremely difficult (especially when considering street names as there are no visual cues, i.e. a big red octagon, to fall back on for recognition).

With this in mind, I entered into reading the chapter on how we read while actively trying to understand the gravity of these impairments when faced with processing deficits. Considering the section on acquired dyslexia specifically I earned that deep dyslexics can identify concrete words better than abstract ones, and surface dyslexics are able to decode pseudowords, but have great difficulty with irregular or unusual pronunciation. I had no idea that there was more than one type of dyslexia which goes to prove how much this class is opening up my eyes to language disorders which I once thought were cut and dry. I wonder what types of therapies are available to these different types of dyslexics and how much it improves their ability to do everyday things, such as driving. I look forward to learning about it in the future!

Blog Post 4: February 7th, 2011
The structure of the internal lexicon: How do we store words in our memory? Do we have a mental filing system in which we categorize events and cross reference….what happens when these filing systems begin to overflow? These were the questions I have always asked of memory in general, but never thought of in relation to language and word memory. This chapter presented five different models of understanding the internal lexicon: The hierarchical network model, the spreading activation model, the semantic feature model, the ACT model of complex cognition, and WORDNET: an electronic lexical database. It was really interesting to see the progression of the models, from a fairly rudimentary hierarchical network model to a very comprehensive ACT model. Although it is out dated and replaced by newer and better models, the hierarchical model struck me as very interesting. It reminded me of the word clouds that teachers used to suggest we write before delving into writing a paper (At least I think they were called word clouds). The concept of it seems similar: using a root word or concept and finding similar topics or related concepts stemming from the initial topic. I guess this “annoying” task actually had a bit of psychological relevance to it! The one thing I am still left wondering about after this chapter is if we have a limit as to how to much we can store…

Blog Post 5: February 14th, 2011
The topic I will be exploring today is on gestures and lexical access. In the chapter description, it explains that gesturing while speaking may serve a dual purpose. It not only communicates information to the listeners, but aids in word retrieval for the speaker. Gestures are explained by Krauss as being “spatiodynamic features of concepts, which can facilitate lexical retrieval…”. The first thought I had on this was whether language differences played a part in the frequency of gesturing while speaking.I have noticed that some people use gesturing while speaking more frequently than others. I, for instance, have always been told that I use it quite a bit. My Acadian, French speaking family frequently uses their hands when talking, yet my fiance’s purely English family rarely uses it at all. What’s more, my Italian best friend’s family use their hands for speaking even more frequently than my French family. Does this then suggest that there may be language differences when it comes to the frequency of gesture usage? Interestingly though, and in directly going against what I stated previously, I am of Acadian descent, but I am an English speaker- So why do I use my hands so much? I am not French speaking, so perhaps I mimic my family in their gesturing? I wonder if there are any studies done on social factors and their influence on the frequency of gesturing while speaking, and what this may suggest about why I need gesturing more than others to lexically access words...

Blog Post 6: February 28th, 2011
Instead of focusing on the textbook readings for the week I’m going to touch upon a thought that occurred to me while working. Over the break I had the opportunity to work full time at my part-time job. I’m a daycare teacher to children aged 18 months-5 Years old. It is common knowledge that children develop at different rates than one another, which can also be said for the acquisition of speech. We have a two year old who speaks better than a four year old. We have a five year old leaving for school who probably should have seen a speech therapist by now, but hasn’t. Finally, the most intriguing child is a three-and-a-half year old whose ears were blocked for the first two years of his life. Essentially, this child was deaf, and having his ears cleared, he no longer is anymore. He obviously has limited speech abilities, and hasn’t shown much progress since starting at the daycare six months ago despite having regular sessions with a speech therapist. What I have been wondering is: at what point would the family choose to do something else about the situation? I remember in class, Newman brought up that so long as ASL was learned early on, the fundamental learning of components of language and language production would be understood. So would it not make sense to also teach the child Sign Language just in case normal speech does not develop, simply so the child would not miss out on this important stage of development? Perhaps there is more credence than I thought to the new fad of teaching your babies sign language after all.

Blog Post 7
Within the lecture on language development, I was intruiged about the lightly touched upon subject of feral children. As unfortunate as these case studies are, they provide a wealth of knowledge in terms of the study of language development. The cases of feral children obviously show grave impairments in crucial language acquisition, however, I was still left with questions after our brief touch on the subject. It is apparent that syntax was impaired in the case of Genie, which is also the case for many other feral children, but are these children equally impaired in other areas of communication that may not be verbal in nature? In some of these horrendous cases, children have been found after years of being raised by animals- wolves is one example. Since a social system with a mode of communication is in place within these groups, would the child then be not as impaired in body language as a means of communication? Since language between human beings does not consist of solely verbal output or signing in individuals who are deaf, it would be interesting to see these cases of feral children as compared to cases in which the child is void of communication as well as social interaction as a means of communication, to determine if any advantage is seen in one situation over the other when it comes to success of communication with other individuals.

Blog Post 8
I come from New Brunswick, the only official bilingual province within Canada. Naturally, this means my heritage is strongly rooted in both French and English speaking relatives. When I tell people that my family is mainly French, they often ask me if I am bilingual, and are surprised when I answer no. However, after this lecture I'm beginning to second guess myself- Perhaps I am bilingual? Not a true bilingual as researchers would term it, but at least partially. I am functional in simple conversational French, but because I cannot carry on an entire conversation, I have never termed myself as bilingual. What is more interesting, is that I can understand spoken French quite well. This is probably the result of being surrounded by French speakers; but having never been prompted to speak French myself, the need never arose for me to learn it in spoken form (and more importantly, the proper syntax of sentences...which is a large issue I have with speaking French). Having believed the notion that a new language is harder or impossible to acquire later in life, I had given up on the possibility of being completely fluent in French. The thought that I am left with after this lecture, is whether the amount of exposure I have had prior to my 'window of opportunity' being closed, is sufficient to allow for fluecy in the language even at my age.

Blog Post 9
I thought I would again touch on the subject of bilingualism, however with a focus on languages themselves and their transformations over time. It occured to me this past weekend, after spending time with my grandmother, that her French isn't quite as French as I had once thought. In response to a phonecall in which the other person spoke too loudly in her ear, she responded with "Tu ma bustay mon eardrum!". I wouldn't have paid attention to her response prior to this course- That is the way many of the French people speak in Southern New Brunswick; We call it Chiac. However, after she said it, I wondered to myself how the language had transformed to this stage. My grandmother is from Quebec, and came to New Brunswick speaking French exclusively. How is it that she came to amalgamate English into her purely French language? Furthurmore it would be interesting to study whether the meshing of the two languages is the way in which new dialects are formed and if it can be attributed to laziness or not.

Final Blog Post
Psycholinguistics has exposed me to the complexity of language. To speak, understand and effectively communicate had always seemed like second nature; however, to those who struggle with communication, I can now understand how language may seem like a very daunting task. In breaking down the components of language and the processes involved in communication, the disorders discussed later in the course were better understood. The blog posts as well as the wikiversity chapter were definitely an effective tool for teaching the subject content in that it required a constant interest in the subject. The blog posts also challenged us to think outside of the box, and to apply the things we learned as each section came to a close. Overall, I believe the presentation of the course was very enjoyable and highly effective in teaching the content to students in a non traditional way, thus ensuring an ongoing interest in the material throughout the semester.

title: User:Aslwin


text:
User:Freechild

My name is Adam and I have been editing Wikipedia since 2004. I am a professional writer, educator, and public speaker focused on community engagement, school reform, and youth empowerment, and volunteering with Wikipedia has stoked my interest, knowledge, and skills as an amateur historian focused on Omaha and Olympia.

title: User:Freechild


text:
User talk:Freechild

 Hello Freechild, and welcome to Wikiversity! If you need help, feel free to visit my talk page, or contact us and ask questions. After you leave a comment on a talk page, remember to sign and date; it helps everyone follow the threads of the discussion. The signature icon in the edit window makes it simple. All users are expected to abide by our Privacy policy, Civility policy, and the Terms of Use while at Wikiversity.

To get started, you may

 * Take a guided tour and learn to edit.
 * Visit a (kind of) random project.
 * Browse Wikiversity, or visit a portal corresponding to your educational level: pre-school, primary, secondary, tertiary, non-formal education.
 * Find out about research activities on Wikiversity.

 * Read an introduction for teachers and find out how to write an educational resource for Wikiversity.
 * Give feedback about your initial observations
 * Discuss Wikiversity issues or ask questions at the colloquium.
 * Chat with other Wikiversitans on #wikiversity-en.

And don't forget to explore Wikiversity with the links to your left. Be bold to contribute and to experiment with the sandbox or your userpage, and see you around Wikiversity! If you're a twitter user, please follow http://twitter.com/Wikiversity. --Ottava Rima (talk) 18:25, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

title: User talk:Freechild


text:
User talk:Eloise1484

 Hello Eloise1484, and welcome to Wikiversity! If you need help, feel free to visit my talk page, or contact us and ask questions. After you leave a comment on a talk page, remember to sign and date; it helps everyone follow the threads of the discussion. The signature icon in the edit window makes it simple. All users are expected to abide by our Privacy policy, Civility policy, and the Terms of Use while at Wikiversity.

To get started, you may

 * Take a guided tour and learn to edit.
 * Visit a (kind of) random project.
 * Browse Wikiversity, or visit a portal corresponding to your educational level: pre-school, primary, secondary, tertiary, non-formal education.
 * Find out about research activities on Wikiversity.

 * Read an introduction for teachers and find out how to write an educational resource for Wikiversity.
 * Give feedback about your initial observations
 * Discuss Wikiversity issues or ask questions at the colloquium.
 * Chat with other Wikiversitans on #wikiversity-en.

And don't forget to explore Wikiversity with the links to your left. Be bold to contribute and to experiment with the sandbox or your userpage, and see you around Wikiversity! If you're a twitter user, please follow http://twitter.com/Wikiversity. Erkan Yilmaz uses the Chat 19:29, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

title: User talk:Eloise1484


text:
User talk:Mabuabsdd/Aqib Aze character teller

Hey, what's with the or File 1:055. Where is this file hosted? Not here, obviously. A file uploaded to one of the wikis won't show up here, except if it's uploaded either here or on Commons, i.e.,. --Abd 21:07, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Material from the source page being deleted.
This tells how to fix only Aaqib pages
 * 1) Leave a message on Resource or Discuss
 * 2) Blank the page

It`s only 2 steps, but the progress who made the page should make sure the page is in shape-and really Glad.

Right now progress: 84%

Should be: 100% 200% or 359%

That page is being deleted because the page name may be a real name. --Abd 17:49, 12 January 2011 (UTC)


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User:Ju wen Ou

Ju Wen Ou is an undergraduate student at the Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and is currently in her third year of Psychology major degree.

Blog 1: January 10-14, 2011
The lectures of this week were mostly about introduction and history of psycholinguistic, and the connection between brain areas and language. At the beginning of this week, we looked at Kanzi’s (the Bonobo chimp) case in language effect on animal. I am really impress how Kanzi can understand a complex sentence and finish the action of it. Human is one kind of animal, if we use language to communicate with other then how about other animal communicate with their own species. A common skill for them to communicate is gooming, human lost this ability and use language instead. When Dr. Newman mentions the question about “can we think without language”, I start to think about how about the animal, how do they think without language? If chimp have an ability to learn language, is that possible for other kinds of animal to learn and understand language or Kanzi’s case is just an outlier. There still need a lot of research and finding need to be done. Hopefully I will learn more about this in this class.

A little difference between myself and the students in the course is that my first language is not English. The place that I came from have a different culture, language, and people. I really understand that different languages can have many differences in between, such as colour (e.g., only have two words to discribe colour in Heider culture)that we discuss in the lecture. It is really hard for single language speaker to understand that one word in a language might become hard to explain or transfer into other language. If there are blocks among different languages, is that possible to understand the meaning of it or explain it to others?

Blog 2: January 17-21, 2011
The lectures in this week were about different types of language disorder, analysis of scientific literature, and speech perception. We discussed many types of language disorders from speech, reading, and naming. I was really surprise about the genders differences finding which showed genders do not have differences in lateralization. We had been told that women are better language and men are better in math. Even the finding suggested that there is no lateralization difference between genders, but in life behaviour women are better in speech than men. In this lectures we get to learn more about dysfunction in language and the symptoms of each disorder. After this lecture, I start to think about a question of the people with language disorder, even they do not have normal function in speech or producing language, but would they be able to understand other’s language? Such as global type aphasias which they are poor in spontaneous speech, poor in speech comprehension, reading, etc. Most of the symptoms were about their production of language, is that possible for people have language dysfunction have difficulty in understand others but still able to produce some language by themselves?

The second lecture of this week was about scientific literature. After this lecture, I just realise that I had use the wrong way to read a scientific literature. I tried to read a scientific paper after this lecture; I did save more time than I normally did to understand the paper and knowing the main point of it. This tip will help me in my future literature review.

The last lecture of this week was about speech perception. I am really interesting in learning sign language, so this lecture help me to understand more about sign language. I was really impressing that sign language totally different system with speech language but people still able to use sign language to have conversation with each other. I just have a question about if different country have different type of sign language then how can people from different countries communicate with their own sign language?

Blog 3: January 24-28, 2011
This week’s lectures were about speech perception and learning to read. I learned about a really special example in perceptual effect which is the McGurk Effect. The McGurk effect occurs when the visual and auditory of a speech phoneme do not match up. This effect lead us to see the brain functioning of receive the speech phoneme might be disrupted by missing one sensory system. When the speech phoneme is confusing by the sensory system in our brain, our brain usually will pick the sound between known as the example in class: the sound in both cover mouth movement and non-cover mouth movement are the same, mouth is making Ga Ga and without see the mouth movement we hear Ba Ba, but because our brain get confuse so we get the sound between Ga and Ba which is DA (the sound that we think we hear).

The last lecture in this week was about learning to read. My first language is not English, but I never realize that there is difference among different language in reading. After this lecture, I start to think about how did I learn to read English and Chinese. When I first learn to read Chinese I was using some pronunciation symbol which help me to present the sound of the word which I think is similar with learning to read English. The difference is when I remember the sound of the word in Chinese I do not use the pronunciation symbol, instate I will remember the sound of the word. In English, even I need to remember the sound of the word; I can still pronounce most of the word by looking at the English word itself without remembers the sound of it.

Blog 4: February 31, 2011
We only had one lecture this week because of the storm day. The lecture of this week was about morpheme. Morpheme is the smallest unit of a word which has semantic meaning, grammatical structure, and different pronunciations. During class, we talked about difference of morpheme in different type of languages, such as Chinese and English. In Chinese, each morpheme has separate word meaning, but in English, some words need more than one morpheme to form its meaning. This explains a situation which in some languages only needs one or two words to translate a sentence from another language. We also looked at the American Sign Language (ASL). I started to reflect on the following questions in different countries’ sign language; if each language has its own grammar and structure then how would that sign language differ, will the people using a different system of sign language be able to communicate with an ASL user? The professor discussed the rules in language and he presented the class with the example of Stanner’s study (1979). This study used regular and irregular English past tense, and Stanner found that people have faster responding time when the English past tense is regular than the irregular. Stanner’s research was conducted with participants whose first language was English, but I am wondering what if this study was conducted with people whom English was their second language. Some language does not have the same type of grammar as English, such as Chinese. Chinese does not have regular and irregular past tense, so for the Chinese speaker who learns English as their second language, might have different responding time with English speaker. As Chinese is my first language, when I learned the English past tense system, I had to memorize both the regular and irregular past tense words, which is kind of different with English speaker when they learn the English past tense system.

Blog 5: February 7-11, 2011
This week’s lectures were about words recognition and syntax. At the beginning of the week, we looked at the question “what do you know when you know a word?” Each word has different meaning, context, pronunciation, and grammar structure in different culture or situation. But how do we know it is a word? A word might only use in specific culture or situation, such as LOL that for the people do not use internet will not understand what this mean. If this is a case then how do we translate the meaning when the word only exists in specific culture? According to de Saussure (1916), a signifier is represent signs and symbols which refers to sounds pattern of particular things. Each signifier is possible have more than one meaning which refer to Alfred Korzybski’s theory (1879-1950). Korzybski mentioned that “the map is not the territory, the word is not the thing defined” which showed in sign language. If people learn sign language before some sign language will not make sense because it might look very different with the actual action. If this is a case then how does sign language user communicate with normal speaker and to different sign language system user?

Blog 6: Feb 14-18, 2011
The topic that we discussed last week is something I find interesting. The topic was about sentence parsing and individual differences. We discussed many theories and examples such as how language can be understood in very different ways which depends on the way that it was used. We looked at an example sentence that has two type of meaning, which depends on how we look at the sentence. It is really interesting to see how our brain works on this. This type of sentence also happens in different languages such as Mandarin. If different types of language have similar type of sentence parsing, is it possible this will also happen in sign language? Sentences will also become hard to understand or confusing when the verb or noun is not being used right. This happen in most languages that if you do not pick a right word in a sentence, it will become very confusing to others. Such as, “Lily sings the guitar”, which the verb in this sentence does not fit well for the noun. We also discussed syntax in the brain and individual differences. We looked at many different studies which provide the brain area for syntax processing. Most studies showed that Broca’s area and working memory (reading span) is the main part for syntax processing. If individual differences in syntactic complexity are dependent on the size of working memory then this made me wonder about how this relates to blind readers. Do the blind readers use the same area to read and apply syntactic processing?

Blog 7: March 2-4, 2011
The topic that we discussed last week was about the relationship between language and music. Language is very similar to music in many ways. Music has an effect on emotion. This makes me wonder whether exposure to soft music during pregnancy will decrease the chance that infants will become depressed when they get older. we looked at the case in which humans are sensitive to music during their infancy. This makes me wonder whether music will increase infants' ability to learn a language? If this is possible will it also be possible to use music to help adults who have problems with language such as speaking problems or help them improve their language skills by singing or listen music. I watched a movie about an individual who has a stammer. One of the treatments he received was to present his speech by sing it out and when he sang, he did not have the stammering problem. Because language and music share many similar features, will it be possible to help adults who have speaking problems improve their language skills by using music?

Blog 8: March 7-11, 2011
The topic that we discussed last week was about writing. Writing can be very different with speaking and reading. We looked at many different type of writing. The evolution of writing was start from picture writing and pictographs. Some pictographs writing can still see in much language such as Chinese and Japanese. We also looked at sound-based writing (Rebus writing). This is different with the pictographs writing in Chinese. In Chinese, most words were created by the shape of the meaning such as turtle (龜) that was created base on the shape of it. In sound-based writing was base on the sound of the word, such as “I” will present in a picture of “eye” because the sound is similar to “I”. We also looked at the way to makes a good writer. Understanding how to makes a good writer helps us to find out the way to improve our writing skill. We also look at the language which has different way in writing of the same word. In Japanese, there are two type of writing of the same word (Kanji and Kana), the brain active differently between two type of writing. In Chinese, we also have different type of writing of the same word (difficult way and easy way), this make me wondering will it be the same with Japanese that difficult way have stronger active than easy way?

Blog 9: March 14-18, 2011
The topic that we discussed was about the development of language. I was very surprise the development of language skill appear is happen much earlier than what I thought it was. It is kind of hard to think back to when I first learn my native language, but I still have some memory of learning my second language. I remember that I always had hard time to remember the rules for my second language. Many previous studies showed that babies are sensitive to native language sound even when they have not born yet. One of the theory is that increase exposure of the language will increase ability of language rule learn by children. If this true I start to wondering if expose autistic children to their native language more, is that possible to increase the chance that they will develop language?

Blog 10: March 21-25, 2011
The topic that we discussed was about bilingualism. I am really interesting about this topic because I am also bilingualism. I never use to call myself bilingualism because I always think to be a bilingualism you have to use well of your second language as your first language such as speaking, reading, and writing. Even I know can do all of that by using my second language, but I never think my second language is not good enough to call myself a bilingualism. After this class, I truly understand the real definition of bilingualism. By learning bilingualism and to understand the development of bilingualism on children help me to learn more about myself. I get to see the benefit and disadvantage of being bilingualism. It is interesting to see the children with bilingualism, because their brain can turn so quickly to understand a totally different language in a same time. It is hard to think back to myself, but it will be easier to see on other people. There are always arguments about the benefit and disadvantage about being bilingualism, such as delay of first word in children. If this will be true, I just wondering will this relate to grammar or rule mistake in later life. I always have hard time to use grammar well in my writing, is that possible because my brain have a conflict of two different type of grammar?

We had a guest speaker on the last lecture of this week, her topic was about aphasia. I had learn this name before and I understand what is that mean, but I never get to look at the really case. It is really interesting to see the difference between fluent and non-fluent aphasia. The video of the patient help me to learn more about each type and their difficulties. It was great to hear that the patient in the video got better after the treatment. I start to wonder is that possible for them to get most of the skill back or they can only heal in some level

Blog 11: March 28 to April 1, 2011
Last week’s lectures were focusing on the debate between the For group and the Against group. It was interested to watch the debates. In the debates, I saw many different thought and information within two groups. The debates helped me to think more deeply on the topic. One of the debate topics from last week was Ebonics. In this debate, both groups presented their points of view very effectively, however the against group provided stronger and more advertences on their point than the for group. It was really interested to see this topic (Ebonics). I start to compare this topic to my native language. There are many types of speaking ways in Chinese such as: Cantonese, Sichuan dialect, Mandarin, and etc. Most of the Chinese speakers use the same type of write system (either in harder written way or easier written way). My native language is Mandarin and I also have a section native language (Taiwanese). Even most of the Chinese speakers use the same write system, but the speaking ways can be very different in accent or using words. By looking at Ebonics’ topic, I start to wondering is this topic similar to our language? In my country, we have specific class for learning the second native language (Taiwanese). I start to wonder if this will work in my country, will it be possible for school in American to add Ebonics as an electrical class for students. Even Ebonics was first created from English, but it has become an identical language.

title: User:Ju wen Ou


text:
User talk:Minsun

 Hello Minsun, and welcome to Wikiversity! If you need help, feel free to visit my talk page, or contact us and ask questions. After you leave a comment on a talk page, remember to sign and date; it helps everyone follow the threads of the discussion. The signature icon in the edit window makes it simple. All users are expected to abide by our Privacy policy, Civility policy, and the Terms of Use while at Wikiversity.

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MaintenanceBot (discuss • contribs) 03:49, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

title: User talk:Minsun


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Psycholinguistics/Individual Differences in Syntactic Processing

Introduction (Individual difference in syntactic processing)
This chapter focuses on individual difference in syntactic processing, which explore from a psychological and neurological perspective. Every individual might form syntax in everyday, but each of them represent differenlly. This might involve difference in dominant brain side, location of brain area, area functioning, neuron firing, individual grow, individual learning, etc.

Language processing is a complex task that involves many brain activities. The syntactic structure is representing the relationship among the meaning of the words in a sentence. Syntactic processing mostly involves working memory and reading span. Size of working memory and reading span can be varying in individual. These vary will cause differences in sentence comprehension especially in syntactic processing. These differences are clear when sentences or task demands are complex. Working memory use on language comprehension processing mostly called verbal working memory (Caplan, David, Waters, & Gloria,1998).

working memory
working memory is the main part work in syntactic processing.

reading span
reading span uses on comprehension of complex sentences. Reading span is measuring relationship among Visuaospatial sketchpad, central executive and phonological loop. The length of reading span can be different in individual. Low span readers will have longer reading times for nondominant resolution or complex sentence. In other hand, high span readers will have equivalent reading times which mean that they will get the complex sentence quicker than low span readers.

How do we record it?
Many studies were measure by using MRI, MEG, ERP, and PET to find out brain activities of individual's difference in syntactic processing

PET
PET studies were carried out in the MGH PET imaging suite, which has been designed to provide for control of ambient light, temperature, and noise level.


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User:Egm6321.f09.mtg21

=EGM6321 - Principles of Engineering Analysis 1, Fall 2009=

title: User:Egm6321.f09.mtg21


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User:Egm6321.f09.mtg25

=EGM6321 - Principles of Engineering Analysis 1, Fall 2009=

title: User:Egm6321.f09.mtg25


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User:Egm6321.f09.mtg29

=EGM6321 - Principles of Engineering Analysis 1, Fall 2009=

title: User:Egm6321.f09.mtg29


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User:Egm6321.f09.mtg31

=EGM6321 - Principles of Engineering Analysis 1, Fall 2009=

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User:Egm6321.f09.mtg33

=EGM6321 - Principles of Engineering Analysis 1, Fall 2009=

title: User:Egm6321.f09.mtg33


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User:Egm6321.f09.mtg35

=EGM6321 - Principles of Engineering Analysis 1, Fall 2009=

title: User:Egm6321.f09.mtg35


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User talk:Egm6321.f09.mtg25

 Hello Egm6321.f09.mtg25, and welcome to Wikiversity! If you need help, feel free to visit my talk page, or contact us and ask questions. After you leave a comment on a talk page, remember to sign and date; it helps everyone follow the threads of the discussion. The signature icon in the edit window makes it simple. All users are expected to abide by our Privacy policy, Civility policy, and the Terms of Use while at Wikiversity.

To get started, you may

 * Take a guided tour and learn to edit.
 * Visit a (kind of) random project.
 * Browse Wikiversity, or visit a portal corresponding to your educational level: pre-school, primary, secondary, tertiary, non-formal education.
 * Find out about research activities on Wikiversity.

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And don't forget to explore Wikiversity with the links to your left. Be bold to contribute and to experiment with the sandbox or your userpage, and see you around Wikiversity! If you're a twitter user, please follow http://twitter.com/Wikiversity. --Ottava Rima (talk) 23:52, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

title: User talk:Egm6321.f09.mtg25


text:
User talk:Egm6321.f09.mtg29

 Hello Egm6321.f09.mtg29, and welcome to Wikiversity! If you need help, feel free to visit my talk page, or contact us and ask questions. After you leave a comment on a talk page, remember to sign and date; it helps everyone follow the threads of the discussion. The signature icon in the edit window makes it simple. All users are expected to abide by our Privacy policy, Civility policy, and the Terms of Use while at Wikiversity.

To get started, you may

 * Take a guided tour and learn to edit.
 * Visit a (kind of) random project.
 * Browse Wikiversity, or visit a portal corresponding to your educational level: pre-school, primary, secondary, tertiary, non-formal education.
 * Find out about research activities on Wikiversity.

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And don't forget to explore Wikiversity with the links to your left. Be bold to contribute and to experiment with the sandbox or your userpage, and see you around Wikiversity! If you're a twitter user, please follow http://twitter.com/Wikiversity. --Ottava Rima (talk) 23:52, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

title: User talk:Egm6321.f09.mtg29


text:
User talk:Egm6321.f09.mtg31

 Hello Egm6321.f09.mtg31, and welcome to Wikiversity! If you need help, feel free to visit my talk page, or contact us and ask questions. After you leave a comment on a talk page, remember to sign and date; it helps everyone follow the threads of the discussion. The signature icon in the edit window makes it simple. All users are expected to abide by our Privacy policy, Civility policy, and the Terms of Use while at Wikiversity.

To get started, you may

 * Take a guided tour and learn to edit.
 * Visit a (kind of) random project.
 * Browse Wikiversity, or visit a portal corresponding to your educational level: pre-school, primary, secondary, tertiary, non-formal education.
 * Find out about research activities on Wikiversity.

 * Read an introduction for teachers and find out how to write an educational resource for Wikiversity.
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And don't forget to explore Wikiversity with the links to your left. Be bold to contribute and to experiment with the sandbox or your userpage, and see you around Wikiversity! If you're a twitter user, please follow http://twitter.com/Wikiversity. --Ottava Rima (talk) 23:53, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

title: User talk:Egm6321.f09.mtg31


text:
User talk:Egm6321.f09.mtg33

 Hello Egm6321.f09.mtg33, and welcome to Wikiversity! If you need help, feel free to visit my talk page, or contact us and ask questions. After you leave a comment on a talk page, remember to sign and date; it helps everyone follow the threads of the discussion. The signature icon in the edit window makes it simple. All users are expected to abide by our Privacy policy, Civility policy, and the Terms of Use while at Wikiversity.

To get started, you may

 * Take a guided tour and learn to edit.
 * Visit a (kind of) random project.
 * Browse Wikiversity, or visit a portal corresponding to your educational level: pre-school, primary, secondary, tertiary, non-formal education.
 * Find out about research activities on Wikiversity.

 * Read an introduction for teachers and find out how to write an educational resource for Wikiversity.
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And don't forget to explore Wikiversity with the links to your left. Be bold to contribute and to experiment with the sandbox or your userpage, and see you around Wikiversity! If you're a twitter user, please follow http://twitter.com/Wikiversity. --Ottava Rima (talk) 23:53, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

title: User talk:Egm6321.f09.mtg33


text:
User talk:Egm6321.f09.mtg35

 Hello Egm6321.f09.mtg35, and welcome to Wikiversity! If you need help, feel free to visit my talk page, or contact us and ask questions. After you leave a comment on a talk page, remember to sign and date; it helps everyone follow the threads of the discussion. The signature icon in the edit window makes it simple. All users are expected to abide by our Privacy policy, Civility policy, and the Terms of Use while at Wikiversity.

To get started, you may

 * Take a guided tour and learn to edit.
 * Visit a (kind of) random project.
 * Browse Wikiversity, or visit a portal corresponding to your educational level: pre-school, primary, secondary, tertiary, non-formal education.
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And don't forget to explore Wikiversity with the links to your left. Be bold to contribute and to experiment with the sandbox or your userpage, and see you around Wikiversity! If you're a twitter user, please follow http://twitter.com/Wikiversity. --Ottava Rima (talk) 23:53, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

title: User talk:Egm6321.f09.mtg35


text:
User talk:Egm6321.f09.mtg21

 Hello Egm6321.f09.mtg21, and welcome to Wikiversity! If you need help, feel free to visit my talk page, or contact us and ask questions. After you leave a comment on a talk page, remember to sign and date; it helps everyone follow the threads of the discussion. The signature icon in the edit window makes it simple. All users are expected to abide by our Privacy policy, Civility policy, and the Terms of Use while at Wikiversity.

To get started, you may

 * Take a guided tour and learn to edit.
 * Visit a (kind of) random project.
 * Browse Wikiversity, or visit a portal corresponding to your educational level: pre-school, primary, secondary, tertiary, non-formal education.
 * Find out about research activities on Wikiversity.

 * Read an introduction for teachers and find out how to write an educational resource for Wikiversity.
 * Give feedback about your initial observations
 * Discuss Wikiversity issues or ask questions at the colloquium.
 * Chat with other Wikiversitans on #wikiversity-en.

And don't forget to explore Wikiversity with the links to your left. Be bold to contribute and to experiment with the sandbox or your userpage, and see you around Wikiversity! If you're a twitter user, please follow http://twitter.com/Wikiversity. --Ottava Rima (talk) 23:53, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

title: User talk:Egm6321.f09.mtg21


text:
User:Megan J Mac Donald

Megan J Mac Donald
I am currently a fourth year Psychology student at Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia. I am originally from Port Hood located on Cape Breton Island, NS and once I graduate this spring I plan to apply to Occupational Therapy and Health Administration.

Blog Post #1- January 12th, 2011
I feel almost embarrassed to say that besides Psycholinguistics there have been only a handful of other courses I have taken in university that have asked me to contribute original or opinionated thought. Although I know there is no one to blame, that larger class sizes make more economical sense, which ultimately means multiple choice tests and standard assignments, somewhere amidst hundreds of students I have lost my own thoughts. However this Psycholinguistics course not only takes the student’s opinions into account, but also adds educational value to the world through the use of Wikiversity. The past couple of classes, in particular last class, have brought about some hard questions about language and thought, but sometimes we must ask questions for which there is no real or concrete answer in order to aspire individuals to look at these questions in a different way. Two specific questions:is language central to human-ness and is language central to thought? reminded me of Alex the Parrot who I had met before in a previous Animal Behaviour class, who unlike Kanzi the Chimp was an animal that had the ability to vocalize. Alex the Parrot could identify 50 different objects and recognize quantities up to six; seven colors, five concepts and had a vocabulary of over 150 words. But what set Alex apart was that he had an understanding of what he was saying, understood the turn-taking of communication and the syntax used in language. For Alex an apple was called a "banerry" which was thought to be a combination of "banana" and "cherry," two fruits that he was already familiar with. He could also recognize English phonemes and could identify sounds made by two-letter combinations such as "SH" and "OR." However there are many researchers invested in the idea that language is the one thing that makes human beings unique and the last boundary standing between man and animal, which is perhaps what made Alex the Parrot so controversial. So one must ask is animal language as complex or expressive as human language? From where we stand and from what we have seen from various animals, humans seem to have the more expressive “language” and perhaps an animal such as Alex is not necessarily using "language" but instead a two-way communications code?

Alex the Parrot YouTube Video []

Blog Post #2- January 23rd, 2011
Until the 1960`s language lateralization observations were based on patients with brain lesions of varying severity, location and etiology which left room for skeptics to argue that language fuction might not be lateralized in the brain. Although modern research has since confirmed the linguistic specialization of the left hemisphere of the brain in major language functions, with the right hemisphere still having language capacity but to a more modest degree, how researchers have come to this conclusion may in part be owed to these various skeptics. Since our previous lecture this past week on the importance of analyzing and thinking critically about scientific literature, I began to appreciate the contributions that skeptics have made to research. Even though sometimes their conclusions or suspicions may be wrong, it is this skepticism that leads researchers to take a second look at their research and to make sure every direction has been considered. Makes you wonder whether misguided or faulty research provides just as much as to reseach as literature that has been validated? Also while I was searching for articles on language lateralization one peaked my interest given my preoccupation with clinical and abnormal psychology, which claimed that decreased language lateralization is characteristic of psychosis and that it may be related to auditory verbal hallucinations. They found that compared with healthy control subjects and non-psychotic sujects with auditory verbal hallucinations, language lateralization was significantly reduced for the patient group (psychotic group). However, because they did not find decreased language lateralization in non-psychotic subjects with auditory verbal hallucinations in comparison to healthy control subjects, even though those with psychosis did have decreased language lateralization, a direct relationship between auditory verbal hallucinations and decreased language lateralization cannot be made. This again brings about the importance of critically analyzing scientific literature no matter if significant conclusions are found in one part of the research and not in another area.

Blog Post #3- January 30th, 2011
Although technology has given us advances to make our lives more convenient, with every advantage comes a disadvantage. Voice or speech recognition technology has allowed human voice to be transcripted, but only at 80% accuracy whereas humans can recognize speech at 96% to 98% accuarcy. We are still far from any sort of universal speech recognition, yet operator jobs are now being replaced by a computer with voice recognizing technology. As recently as 1970, more than half of employed U.S adults worked in two occupational categories : blue-collar jobs and clerical jobs, which supported much of the middle and lower class of society but now many of the clerical jobs are being replaced by technology. However, what puzzles me the most is why speech recognition techology is replacing jobs when the technology still seems so inefficient. Take for example the voice search app on smartphones that requires individuals to repeat a command numerous times when they could simply reach down and click once. Or an operator that could quickly click a column on the computer and input a correct address, instead of weeks later individuals realizing their package isn't coming because the speech recognition software typed in 12 Down St instead of 12 Town St. Is technology really advancing our world or just producing more headaches? Another topic that grabbed my attention this week in class was the stages of learning to read. We are required at such a young age to learn one of the fundamental ingredients for furthering our education as young adults. If you consider all the complicated skills that a child is required to achieve at such a young age, it would be even harder to imagine what would be required of a child with a learning disability to achieve these same set of skills. Researchers have found that children with reading disabilities appear to acquire reading skills late in development, with children with reading disabilities at the age of 14 performing no better than normal readers at the age of 7. In particular, after talking about grapheme-to-phoneme issues for individuals who speech different languages than English, research by Backman and collegagues on children with learning disabilities stuck out to me. They found that children with reading disabilites were not as skilled at using grapheme-to-phoneme conversion rules and had more difficulty with orthographic patterns that had multiple pronunciations. Perhaps if we can figure out how individuals of another language that have low grapheme-to-phoneme abilities learn how to speak English, maybe we can begin to understand how to help children suffering from reading disabilities with the same struggles? Long shot? Most likely, but just a thought.

Blog Post #4- February 6th, 2011
During the past week, as I near closer and closer to graduating from my undergrad, I have found myself considering the practical application of various topics I have talked about in my different classes. Although there was only one class this week, the one we did have covered the topic of typology. During the class it was also brought to my attention the amount of individuals in our class they speak more than one language or do not have English as their first language. At first I intially thought of the advantage they must have by being able to understand cross-linguistic similarities and differences. It seems that perhaps an essential part of any linguistics class is for a student to have encountered one or more exotic languages. Although some may argue this statement, having a background in subsequent languages would allow an individual to consider the universals that exist between various languages. However upon further contemplation and after reading a article by the National Research Council (U.S), it would seem that North American education has focused primarily on the needs of native English speaking students. and I am sure this is no different for any class offer at Dalhousie. Being that it is an English speaking university, one can't help but think of the amount of international students that attend our school and how difficult it must be to attend a school tailored to students who have a single native language. Perhaps research in typology, determing the similarites and differences across languages, can be used to be able to deliever a curriculum that is efficient for both English speaking students and those with a minority language. Even awareness may help professors and teachers to understand the different factors contributing to individual learning. However, we have to wonder if accommodating for those with English not being there first language will end up harming the education for the students whose first language is English?

Blog Post #5- February 13th, 2011
The proportion of older persons in society is continuing to increase especially as the baby boomers grow closer to retirement and so it is imperative that we gain more knowledge about the effects of aging on cognitive functioning. It has been found that semantic encoding and inferencing, word retrieval and new connection formation in memory all decline with age. But recently I came across an article that found significantly greater priming effect for older adults in comparison to younger adults. Research has proposed that the semantic network of older adults may be larger than that of young adults because older adults have processed language stimuli for at least two to three times longer than the younger group (Cameli, 1999; Laver et al., 1993). They also believe it may be due in part to an increase in the inhibition of unrelated targets. Although these findings do not seem logical being that most other cognitive functions deteriorate with age, the fact that semantic priming effects seem to increase with age may help us to understand some of the symptoms of Alzheimer`s disease better. It seems that patients with Alzheimer`s fail to produce priming under conditions which encourage automatic semantic processing. By understanding why older adults have enhanced semantic priming effects, perhaps this will give us an idea as to what occurs in the brain of an individual with Alzheimer`s if semantic priming seems to not exist. Another group of individuals that seem to have an increase in semantic priming effects is those with schizophrenia. Schizophrenic discourse is often characterized by associative intrusions in which strong associate to earlier words supplant contextually appropriate speech. Activated associations of normal individuals decay rapidly or are inhibited, which limits their potential for intrusion of activated association into their speech. These findings leads us to propose the question that if both older adults and schizophrenics have heightened semantic priming effects what is the difference in brain function that makes those with schizophrenia have inappropriate speech priming and older adults to avoid these intrusions in their speech?

Blog Post #6- February 27, 2011
Taking information from Wednesday and Friday's lectures I began to wonder whether factors besides working memory are involved in low and high reading span capacity such as inferences and elaborations mentioned in class on Friday. Upon further investigation I came across a number of studies that have found that individual differences in working memory are expected to be strongly related to predictive inferences. According to Gathercole (2001), the more activation available for meeting the storage demands of language processing, the more likely the reader will be able to draw inferences on-line during comprehension. Whitney and colleagues (1991) also found similar results but were interested in inferences that occured during the thinking-out-loud procedure. Although both the high memory span readers and the low memory span readers produced inferences, high memory span readers tended to do so toward the end of the passage, whereas low memory span readers tended to distribute their inferences more evenly throughout the passage. The difficulty in retaining so much information in the working memory led the low span readers to form concrete, specific inferences, some of which later turned out to be wrong. However, high span readers were able to make these decisions later in the passage, when they were more likely to be correct. It would also seem that low and high memory span readers differ in their memory encoding strategies: individuals with low span use mainly rehearsal, whereas individuals with high span use almost exclusively semantic elaboration. This indicates that the use of elborative strategies may enhance span performance but that not all individuals can use this strategy efficiently. Background information also influenes discourse comprehension, so when an individual encounters an unfamiliar passage, it is more difficult for them to draw appropriate inferences. So I guess the question may be, if we could control the amount of familiar passages or vocabulary of individuals or students would this help them to enhance their working span memory strategies and aid in inference and elboration?

Blog Post #7- March 6th, 2011
Before class this week I wasn't really aware that a condition existed in which people are not able to share in the enjoyment and production of music. Music is such a big part of my everyday life that I couldn't imagine not being able to appreciate or experience the positive effects of music. It made me wonder of the neural basis behind this disability and the brain differences between amusics and musically intact individuals. A study by Hyde and colleagues (2007) found that amusics had reduced white matter in the right inferior frontal gyrus and postulated that the decrease in white matter was indicative of an impoverished white matter communication in a right hemisphere-based network involving the inferior frontal cortex and the right auditory cortex. The decreased white matter in the right IGF of amusics was associated with an increase in gray matter. The correlation found between cortical thickness and the global musical scores at both the right IFG and right auditory area is consistent with the functional literature demonstrating that these regions are important in musical pitch processing. What I also found amazing was that individuals who suffer from aphasia or other brain damages can have their musical abilities spared. Basso and Capitani (1985) did research on the case study of a conductor that suddenly developed global aphasia, his musical capabilities were largely spared and he was still able to conduct. The case study provides evidence in favour of right hemisphere dominance for music. Another consideration that is often dicussed in the media is the positive theraputic effects of music on speech impairments and I often wonder if more psychologists should take into account music therapy when they are dealing with disorders or disabilities affecting linguistics. Is this something that should be taken more seriously in therapy settings?

Blog Post #8- March 13th, 2011
Out of all the aspects of language I found gestures to be the most interesting and prevalent due to the fact that it is one of the most well known parts of language that can be understood across cultures and throughout all languages. I came apon intriguing research that stated that children learn when their teacher's gestures and speech differ from each other. Often substantive information can be found in gestures that cannot be found anywhere else in the teacher's speech. However, although gestures in the classroom are apparent, the question is whether these gestures promote learning. A lot of literature has supported the use of gestures to aid in the learning and speech of an individual, but this study by Singer and Goldin-Meadow (2005) aims to understand how someone else's gestures can help other individuals to learn. Teachers usually gesture when they teach and those gestures do not always convey the same information as their speech. These gestures offer a second message for the students, particularly when the information conveyed in gesture does not always match the information conveyed in the speech it accompanies called a gesture-speech mismatch. Mismatching gesture and speech allows speakers to add a second problem-solving strategy to an instruction. Having a variety of problem solving approaches to a problem is postively associated with cognitive change and is usually beneficial for learners to be exposed to multiple learning strategies. Studies have found that in teaching across nations, Japanese students exposed to more alternative methods for solving math problems learn more than those students in America. So if other nations are finding such results shouldn't the same methods be applied to North American classrooms? It may also be important to consider the fact that gesture-speech mismatch could help students with learning disorders because they seem to need multiple, unique and individual learning strategies that usually differ from regular students.

Blog Post #9- March 20th, 2011
In class we talked about how an infant's first speech perception is in utero but that this does not effect their language acquisition later on in life, however there may be research still yet to come that would dispute this fact. According to an article by DeCasper and colleagues (1994), normal prenatal exposure to maternal speech influences the early development of speech perception is consistent with research showing that pregnant women's speech sounds are present in utero, that late-term fetuses possess relevant perceptual abilities, and that postnatal perception of speech sounds can be influenced by prenatal experience. In the experiment done by DeCasper et al., pregnant women receited a passage from a nursery rhyme throughtout the last 6 weeks of their pregnancy. After birth, the newborns participated in a choice task where they picked between the passage they had heard in utero and a control passage. The newborns picked the in utero passage significantly more than the control passage, and this research implies that fetal perception, and not just that of young infants, are affected by exposure to maternal speech. Another thought that came to mind during last week lectures had to do with Genie, who was neglected and was never able to develop language. After Dr. Newman mentioned the Nicaraguan Sign Language, I began to wonder if Genie had been locked away with another child, would they, like the Nicaraguan children, have come up with there own language or developed their own source of communication?

Blog Post #10- March 27th, 2011
Research has suggested that children who learn a second language are more creative and better at solving complex problems than those who do not. However, after the lectures this past week, I started to wonder about the impact of bilingualism on children, their overall language development, and whether learning a second language somehow interfers with verbal achievement or fluency? One study by Levy and colleagues (2007) found that after immersion in a foreign language, speakers often have difficulty retrieving native-language words, which is a phenomenon known as first-language attrition. They found that first-language attrition arises in part from the suppression of native-language phonology during second-language use, and thus is a case of phonological retrieval-induced forgetting. However, most literature supports the idea that bilingualism faciliates verbal and non-verbal fluency. A study by Bialystok et al. (2007) has also proposed the fact that bilingualism acts as a form of protection against the onset of symptoms of dementia. The bilingual patients in their study exhibited a delay of 4.1 years in the onset of symptoms of dementia in comparison to monolinguals. One of the statistics that struck me most from this research was the fact that there are currently no pharmological interventions that have shown comparable effects such as these. This research shows that such cognitive-enhancing experiences like bilingualism affect both structural volume and functional organization of the central nervous system. Perhaps now as a society we had to need consider the benefits of bilingualism and whether immersion should become a standard in the school systems across the country?

Blog Post #11- April 3rd, 2011
I find while watching the debates it is hard not to have an opinion and often times you can't help but want to contribute arguments to one side or the other. I did have a few thoughts in response to some of the arguments brought up during the debates in the last week and think it is important to consider all information before choosing where you stand. In resposne to the Ebonics debate, I couldn't help but think of my high school in a small village on Cape Breton Island. Located throughout the village are street signs which are written in both English and the Gaelic language. The area in which I live had largely been settled by the Scottish, with the majority of the people from the town coming from Scottish decent, and with this some people of the older generation are able to speak Gaelic. Growing up, Gaelic was taken by all students in my elementary school, including myself, just as French was. Gaelic was also an option in my high school and there were quite a few students in my class who took the course. Gaelic in many areas of Nova Scotia is a dying language, and perhaps many individuals have not even heard of the language. However, it is important for a culture and has still been included as a choice in our schools. The same could possibly be done for Ebonics; we all know that English is the dominant language in most schools around here and understand the importance of teaching all students this language, but for those individuals in which Ebonics is a part of their culture could they not have the option to take this course in their high schools and elementary school? Perhaps this is a compromise that could be argeed upon. Often people get so caught up in the right or wrong of a situation, but sometimes the middle ground can be the answer to a problem. It is the same with the cochlear implant argument and whether we should teach these individuals either sign language or oral communication. Could we not use the benefits of both to help these children make the transition to one or the other. Sign language could be used as a stepping stone to help children who have received cochlear implants to better adjust to this dramatic change in their lifestyle. Sign language to me is more than a language, it is apart of a deaf culture and to make the decision to choose oral communication over sign language would be to take away apart of a child's culture and identity. Therefore I think that a compromise is needed to give these children the benefits of both worlds in order to better deal with their implants.

Blog Post #12- April 9th, 2011
Reflecting back on this semester, I turned out to enjoy this class a lot more than I thought I would. Initially I was intimidated by both the concept of Wikiversity and being evaluated in a different way than I was normally accustom to. However, this class challenged me to think in a different way but also gave me the opportunity to express my opinion, which rarely has happened during my time at Dal. I have actually never done a debate either in high school or university until now and have developed an appreciation of how difficult it is to back your arguments with evidence based research. The Wikiversity chapter, although time consuming at times, made me realize there is more to learning than simply reading out of a textbook and makes you look at information differently if you are the one that has to express your thoughts concisely and clearly. I also enjoyed the idea of blogging our thoughts on material brought up in class, however I did find it to be a bit much at times and maybe it would be better if blog posts were required every second week. I think I found the learning exercise to be the hardest part of this class, I like the concept of it but in reality it is much more difficult to come up with a learning exercise higher up on bloom's taxonomy, especially when we as students don't have experience with developing such activities or questions. Overall though, I got a lot out psycholinguistics and value what is being done with the class. These interactive ways of learning are important, effective and should be incooperated into more classes.

title: User:Megan J Mac Donald