Search results

AbstractPitch is often described metaphorically: for example, Farsi and Turkish speakers use a 'thickness' metaphor (low sounds are 'thick' and high sounds are 'thin'), while German and English speakers use a height metaphor ('low', 'high'). This study examines how child and adult speakers of Farsi, Turkish, and German map pitch and thickness using a cross‐modal association task. All groups, except for German children, performed significantly better than chance. German‐speaking adults' success suggests the pitch‐to‐thickness association can be learned by experience. But the fact that German children were at chance indicates that this learning takes time. Intriguingly, Farsi and Turkish children's performance suggests that learning cross‐modal associations can be boosted through experience with consistent metaphorical mappings in the input language.

AbstractThe origin of color categories is under debate. Some researchers argue that color categories are linguistically constructed, while others claim they have a pre‐linguistic, and possibly even innate, basis. Although there is some evidence that 4–6‐month‐old infants respond categorically to color, these empirical results have been challenged in recent years. First, it has been claimed that previous demonstrations of color categories in infants may reflect color preferences instead. Second, and more seriously, other labs have reported failing to replicate the basic findings at all. In the current study we used eye‐tracking to test 8‐month‐old infants' categorical perception of a previously attested color boundary (green–blue) and an additional color boundary (blue–purple). Our results show that infants are faster and more accurate at fixating targets when they come from a different color category than when from the same category (even though the chromatic separation sizes were equated). This is the case for both blue–green and blue–purple. Our findings provide independent evidence for the existence of color categories in pre‐linguistic infants, and suggest that categorical perception of color can occur without color language.

The combination of two methodological resources - natural user interface and multimodal learning analytics - is creating opportunities for educational researchers to empirically evaluate theoretical models accounting for the emergence of concepts from situated sensorimotor activity. Seventy-six participants (9-14 years old) solved tablet-based presymbolic manipulation tasks designed to foster grounded meanings for the mathematical concept of proportional equivalence. Data gathered in task-based semi-structured clinical interviews included action logging, eye-gaze tracking, and videography. Analysis of these data indicates that successful task performance coincided with spontaneous emergence of stable dynamical gaze path patterns soon followed by multimodal articulation of strategy. Significantly, gaze patterns included unmanipulated, non-salient screen locations. We present cumulative evidence that these gaze patterns served as ''attentional anchors'' mediating participants' problem solving. By way of further contextualizing our claim, we also present case studies from the various experimental conditions. We interpret the findings as enabling us to revisit, support, refine, and perhaps elaborate on seminal claims from Piaget's theory of genetic epistemology and in particular his insistence on the role of situated motor-action coordination in the process of reflective abstraction.