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Dictation is a traditional technique for both teaching and testing overall language ability and listening comprehension. In a dictation, a passage is read aloud by the teacher and examinees write down what they hear. Due to the peculiar form of dictations, psychometric analysis of dictations is challenging. In a dictation, there is no clear boundary between the items and every word in the text is potentially an item. This makes the analysis of dictations with classical and modern test theories rather difficult. In this study, we suggest a procedure to make dictations analyzable with psychometric models. Our strategy entailed using several independent short passages instead of a single long passage. The number of mistakes in each passage was counted and entered into the analysis. Rasch model analysis was then applied to the passage scores (mistakes). Our findings showed that dictations fit the Rasch model very well and it is possible to measure examinees' ability on an interval scale using dictations.

Performing two actions at the same time usually results in performance costs. However, recent studies have also reported dual-action benefits: performing only one of two possible actions may necessitate the inhibition of the initially activated, but unwarranted second action, leading to single-action costs. Presumably, two preconditions determine the occurrence and strength of such inhibition-based dual-action benefits: (a) response set reductivity and (b) action prepotency. A nonreductive response set (given when all possible responses have to be kept in working memory) creates inhibitory action control demands in single-, but not in dual-action trials, and the ensuing inhibitory costs are proportional to the level of action prepotency (i.e., an action that is easy to initiate is hard to inhibit). Here, we set out to test this hypothesis by varying representational characteristics in working memory (namely response set reductivity and action prepotency) across four experiments. In Experiments 1 to 3, we compared (a) a randomized mode of trial presentation to (b) intermixed, but predictable fixed sequences of trial types and (c) a completely blocked mode of presentation. As expected, dual-action benefits were strongly present in Experiment 1, significantly reduced in Experiment 2, and absent in Experiment 3. This pattern of results matches our predictions derived from the assumption that differential inhibitory costs in single-action trials are the root cause of dual-action benefits. Crucially, however, the results of Experiment 4 (in which response conditions were only partially blocked) pointed to a secondary source of dual-action benefits that was inseparable from inhibition-based effects in previous experimental designs: semantic redundancy gains.

This quasi-experimental quantitative study investigated the effects of different formats of multimediaenhanced instruction on knowledge gain and retention of second language learners. The study focused specifically on assessing Mayer's redundancy principle. Second language learners were randomly assigned into two groups and were presented with two formats of a multimedia-enhanced lesson: (1) images with audio and (2) images with audio and on-screen text. A repeatedmeasures analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was carried out to evaluate change between pretest and immediate posttest, mean differences in knowledge gain between the two groups, group differences in growth from pretest to immediate posttest, change between immediate posttest and delayed posttest, and group differences in knowledge retention as indicated by difference scores between immediate posttest and delayed posttest, using gender and English proficiency as control variables. Additionally, an independent samples t-test was performed to assess the effect of the two formats of multimedia-enhanced instruction on the learners' knowledge retention. Results showed that participants engaging with both formats of multimedia-enhanced instruction improved significantly from pretest to posttest. Moreover, participants who engaged with the multimedia-enhanced instruction where on-screen text was included were also found to perform significantly better than participants who were in the group where on-screen text was not present. Second language learners in both groups were also able to retain their knowledge at the same level. These results appear to contradict the redundancy principle as having onscreen text, which is considered redundant, presented together with images and audio in a multimedia-enhanced lesson was not detrimental to learning.

Policy observers have expressed concern over whether misalignment between pre-K and K--12 has negative consequences for children. This study considers students' exposure to redundant content across the pre-K and kindergarten years. Specifically, it asks, to what extent are skills and concepts taught in kindergarten redundant with skills and concepts taught in one state's public pre-K program, and for whom is redundancy most likely? Overall, findings from teacher surveys show that about 37% of the language, literacy, and math content covered in kindergarten is redundant with content covered in pre-K. The highest rates of redundancy seem to occur for basic (rather than advanced) content items, including the identification of letters and sight words. Moreover, children from families who live at or below the poverty line experience significantly higher rates of redundant content. Implications for policy, practice, and future research are discussed.

Redundancy effect has been investigated in many controlled experimental studies, however, it is seldom investigated whether the same redundant material may cause different results in classroom, which is a major learning place for students. Considering that it is not easy to control the internal validity in classroom environment, this study proposed a new research approach with the use of virtual reality (VR) classroom as the experimental platform to investigate this issue. In the current study, one hundred and four fifth-grade students were randomly assigned to four experimental conditions with two different presentation formats (redundant and non-redundant) and two learning environments (lab and VR classroom). The retention test scores, cognitive load, and performance efficiency were used as dependent variables. The results revealed that the redundancy effect occurred in the lab environment and the reverse redundancy effect occurred in the VR classroom environment. In the lab environment, participants who had learned with non-redundant materials demonstrated better learning performance than those who had learned with redundant materials. On the contrary, the results were reversed in the VR classroom environment. The programmed interferences in the VR classroom are suggested as the main factor influencing the results.

The use of subtitles within multimedia presentations is a common practice to develop accessible instructional materials for individuals with disabilities. However, due to various deficits in cognitive processing, individuals with symptoms of attention-deficit/ hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) may not benefit from the use of subtitles to enhance their recall of information and transference of knowledge with reduced mental effort. This study evaluated learners in two different environments. The redundancy group included subtitles with a narrated multimedia presentation, and the nonredundancy group included the same presentation with narration only. The analysis of data collected indicated that an increase in ADHD symptoms resulted in an increase in mental effort and a decrease in recall and transfer. Based on these observations, designers should allow learners to control the use of subtitles in narrated multimedia presentations.

Different from other elaborate proses, academic writing needs a clear language to extend its scope of audience. Intending to be seen intellectual, competent, or more attractive, writers may inflate their manuscripts with unnecessary complicated words and pompous frills unique to specific jargons; however, such texts, called flowery writing, in an attempt to sound important or possibly gloriously elegant only create a viscous language hard to follow, ending with texts strangling in meaningless jargon that needs to be deciphered by readers with considerable effort. Obviously, the reader whose aim is simply to get a piece of information may become easily confused and irritated after a time of chasing the meaning of words inside an overwrought prose. Therefore, now that the primary purpose of a scientific writing is to reach audiences, and a simplified statement would just do fine to achieve that; why do we use a flowery language that is difficult to decode? This study investigated introduction and conclusion parts of a hundred research articles written in English by Turkish speakers, and picked up unnecessary complicated words, phrases and sentences. In addition, some pedagogical implications regarding the importance of being plain in academic writing were suggested particularly for non-native writers of English.

The purpose of this mixed-method study was to evaluate a Higher Education Administration doctoral program, to understand student perceptions of program quality, to improve both student satisfaction and retention to degree completion, and to plan for the future. Findings from survey data and focus group interviews indicated program strengths to include caring and supportive faculty, excellent teaching, and useful, real world application of curriculum content. Findings also indicated several program challenges including inconsistent leadership due to faculty and administrative turnover, inconsistent policies and practices, lack of proper student advising and mentoring, curriculum redundancy, unclear distinctions between degree programs, and lack of proper research preparation for the dissertation stage. The researchers prioritized program changes based upon findings where survey and focus group data intersected. Currently the Higher Education Administration program is making changes to its required curriculum in order to reduce hours to degree completion, to eliminate curriculum redundancy, and to clarify distinctions between the Ed.D. and Ph.D. programs. In conducting this program evaluation however, the researchers have realized that some program challenges may be systemic, and therefore, not easily remedied.

This study explores the development of anaphora resolution (AR) in late sequential bilinguals, namely, adult Greek learners of Spanish at three proficiency levels (intermediate, lower advanced, upper advanced). The use of an overt/null pronominal subject anaphor is investigated in three discourse contexts: topic-continuity (a single antecedent requiring a null pronoun), contrastive-focus (two same-gender potential antecedents requiring an overt pronoun to avoid ambiguity) and emphatic (three same-gender potential antecedents showing unclear preference for either overt or null pronoun). Crucially, AR behaves similarly in Greek and Spanish. Results from an offline contextualised acceptability judgement task show that similarity between the learner's first (L1) and second (L2) languages does not necessarily facilitate the learning task. Even very advanced learners show deficits, which are selective since not all discursive contexts are equally affected. The results are better accounted for by general pragmatic economy principles: Learners prefer being redundant (overuse of overt pronouns in topic-continuity contexts) to ambiguous (acceptance of null pronouns in contrastive-focus contexts). Such tolerance for redundancy may reflect a more general pragmatic tendency, as also reported in child L1 development, adult L2 development and also in native grammars.

The purposes of this study are: (1) to investigate whether cloze forms with text-driven deletion method, proposed by Farhady and Keramati (1996), will produce better psychometric properties than standard cloze form; (2) to compare the psychometric properties of cloze test and C-test, both of which belong to the family of language reduced redundancy test; (3) to examine whether different deletion rates lead to difference in test-takers' performances; and (4) to test whether the assumption of test-takers' performance invariance across different texts hold for both cloze test and C-test. Based on two authentic texts with different rhetoric modes, three cloze forms with text-driven deletion method, along with one standard cloze and one form of C-test, were constructed and randomly administered to 237 student subjects at one private university in northern Taiwan. Furthermore, each subject was required to take three subtests (from a sample TOEFL test) as criterion measures for empirical validity. The results of the study indicated that neither the three cloze forms nor the C-test was substantially superior to the standard cloze in terms of reliability and validity. In addition, the findings of the study were inconclusive with regard to whether different deletion rates result in different test-takers' performances. Finally, no strong evidence was found to substantiate the claim that both cloze test and C-test meet the assumption of test-takers' performance invariance across different texts. (Contains 5 tables.)

This research developed from the recognition that work-based placement briefing and debriefing sessions need to encourage reflection and student self-directed learning. An action research methodology was used to obtain students views of the value of briefing and debriefing sessions. Changes to session format were introduced and then in response to student comments they were re-evaluated. Results demonstrated that students were unhappy with the original format. They preferred and became more fully engaged with the self-directed, student-centred sessions when reflection was an integral element.

This study examines the characteristics and quality of simplification in graded readers as compared to those of "normal" authentic English. Two passages from graded readers are compared with the original passages. The comparison uses a computer programme, RANGE (Nation and Heatley, 2003) to analyse the distribution of high and low frequency words in the passages. This is supported by a comparison of the texts in terms of Swaffar's (1985) characteristics of authentic message. The present study is in part a reanalysis and extension of Honeyfield's (1977) seminal study of simplification, but it reaches different conclusions. By not making the simplified versus original text comparison in absolute terms, but in terms of the respective readers, it finds that patterns of use of structure, discourse markers, redundancy, collocations, and high and low frequency vocabulary, are similar in both original and simplification. This suggests that the writing in well-written graded readers can be, for its audience, experienced as authentic and typical of "normal" English. (Contains 6 figures and 4 tables.)

We live in the information and the microelectronic age, where technological advancements become a major determinant of our lifestyle. Such advances in technology cannot possibly be made or sustained without concurrent advancement in management systems (5). The impact of computer technology on organizations and society is increasing as new technologies evolve and existing technologies expand (5). Because of the influences of the innovations in the computer technology, people can also build their own computerized systems with easy-to-use construction tools. Management is a process by which certain goals are achieved trough the use of resources like materials, people, money, time. These resources are considered to be inputs, and the attainment of the goals is viewed as the output of the process. Database systems continue to be a key aspect of Computer Science & Engineering today. Representing knowledge within a computer is one of the central challenges of the field. Database research has focused primarily on this fundamental issue (6). This paper presents a database management system developed for AOF (Faculty of Open Education) course books. Its rationale is based on the development of a database application that share data and operations through a database. It supports organization's manipulation and retrieval of data. In order to organize large amounts of data (book's names, ISBN numbers, number printed; authors' names, and addresses, etc.) similar user interfaces are developed for different types of users. In addition, they can create special reports. It also encourages users who have no previous programming experience. The detail of the study is presented in the third part of the paper. In the second part of the paper, some knowledge about management information systems and database management systems are given.

Two experiments were conducted to investigate how individuals with persistent pain would respond to instructional materials designed to promote the modality and redundancy effects. It was predicted that persistent pain would reduce the positive impact of narrated text due to reduced working memory capacity. One hundred thirty-seven full-time teachers from six schools in Australia participated in the study. Pain and pain-free participants were identified and matched through a demographics questionnaire before being randomly assigned to selected instructional formats. In both experiments, participants viewed system-paced multimedia presentations depicting how lightning works. In Experiment 1, it was found that for pain-free participants, illustrations plus narrated text led to significantly higher learning outcomes than illustrations plus written text (a modality effect). However, for pain participants, no advantage was found for the illustrations plus narrated text format. In Experiment 2, it was found that for pain-free participants, illustrations plus narrated text led to significantly higher learning outcomes than illustrations plus narrated text plus identical written text (a redundancy effect). For pain participants, a reverse effect was found, suggesting that the replicated written text format was not redundant but beneficial for these individuals. Furthermore, despite low scores on standardized pain measures, individuals with persistent pain achieved significantly lower learning outcomes than pain-free participants in both experiments. It was concluded that clinically low levels of pain could significantly interfere with information retention and transference. For individuals with persistent pain, the use of narrated explanatory text could be a disadvantage due to its transitory nature.

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effect of captioned vs. non-captioned instructional videos on the motivation and achievement. To this end, a pre-test and post-test experimental design was used on 109 sophomores from a Turkish state university. Videos with and without captions of the unit in question were prepared by the lecturer of the course "Graphics and Animation in Education." The first group (captioned video group; n = 57) studied the applied dimension of the course with captioned videos but the second group (non-captioned video group; n = 52) studied without captions. Qualitative and quantitative data were collected for study. Quantitative data were collected via academic achievement test and instructional materials motivation survey while qualitative data were collected by means of focus group interviews to substantiate the quantitative data. The findings indicated that, in contrast to the suggestion of the redundancy principle, motivation and achievement scores of students do not vary according to the instructional video type under investigation (captioned vs. non-captioned). Thereby, it was concluded that a moderating effect of the streaming feature of instructional material should be considered to interpret the redundancy effect. However, further research is needed to better reveal this moderating effect.

Previous research on multiple external representations (MER) indicates that sequencing representations (compared with presenting them as a whole) can, in some cases, increase conceptual understanding if there is interference between internal and external representations. We tested this mechanism by sequencing different combinations of scientific and abstract chemical representations and presenting them to 133 learners with low prior knowledge of the represented domain. The results provide insight into three separate mechanisms of learning with MER. (1) A memory (number of ideas reproduced) and (2) an accuracy (correctness of these ideas) effects occur when two representations are presented in a sequence. An accuracy and a (3) redundancy (number of redundant ideas remembered) effects occur when three representations are presented in a sequence. A necessary precondition for these effects is that descriptive formats are placed before depictive formats. The identified effects are analyzed in terms of the concept of cognitive dissonance.

The current use of two sets of units in the UK continues to be a source of muddle and confusion. Young people are taught metric (SI) units in school but, in the outside world, still have to contend with units such as inches, feet, pounds, stones and miles. Specialist teachers and practitioners of the sciences are not blameless. This paper considers the fact that some units commonly used in physics, astronomy, and physics education are unnecessary, involve time-wasting conversions and frequently lead to confusion or even error. This unsatisfactory situation is illustrated by examples, and suggestions are made for a radical improvement.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of redundancy when learning from realistic science materials. Participants received instruction where redundancy was manipulated between text and diagrams with captions, text and diagrams, and text only. Participants reported levels of cognitive load, responded to questionnaire items and completed an achievement test. Findings indicated there were no significant differences in perceived mental effort between groups, though there were differences in experienced material difficulty. In contrast with the redundancy effect described by cognitive load theory, the manipulation of redundancy in lengthier text materials paired with diagrams did not affect performance on the achievement test.

Multimedia presentations that combine visual and verbal information are widely used for instructional purposes. While the design of the text-graphic relationship is difficult, several design strategies with the potential to reduce cognitive load have been identified in the literature. The purpose of this study is to examine how split-attention, modality, redundancy, and cueing influence how both high and low prior knowledge participants view and learn from four different multimedia presentations on mitosis. The findings indicate that low prior knowledge learners were more prone to cognitive overload with split-attention and redundant designs. While there were no differences in learning gains among the presentations compared for high prior knowledge students, these learners did not prefer the narrated presentation. More research is necessary on how to best design multimedia presentations for diverse learners.

Although infants and children show impressive face-processing skills, little research has focused on the conditions that facilitate versus impair face perception. According to the intersensory redundancy hypothesis (IRH), face discrimination, which relies on detection of visual featural information, should be impaired in the context of intersensory redundancy provided by audiovisual speech and enhanced when intersensory redundancy is absent. Evidence of this visual facilitation and intersensory interference was found in a recent study of 2-month-old infants (Bahrick, Lickliter, & Castellanos, in press). The present study is the first to extend tests of this principle of the IRH to children. Using a more difficult face recognition task in the context of a story, results from 4-year-old children paralleled those of infants and demonstrate that face discrimination in children is also facilitated by dynamic, visual-only exposure, in the absence of intersensory redundancy.

Individuals can partly recreate the "wisdom of crowds" within their own minds by combining nonredundant estimates they themselves have generated. Herzog and Hertwig (2009) showed that this accuracy gain could be boosted by urging people to actively think differently when generating a 2nd estimate ("dialectical bootstrapping"). Although the "crowd within" promises accuracy gains, it remains unclear whether and when people spontaneously reap those gains. What makes people combine their estimates rather than trying to identify the better one? This research found that participants were more likely to combine when they were instructed to actively contradict themselves. Furthermore, they were more likely to combine as the size of the disagreement between 1st and 2nd estimate grew. People thus acted as if they were hedging against the risk of making large errors. Finally, when people pursued a strategy other than combination, they were not able to outperform their crowd within.

In this paper we present three design principles of language--experience, heterogeneity and redundancy--and present recent developments in a family of models incorporating them, namely Data-Oriented Parsing/Unsupervised Data-Oriented Parsing. Although the idea of some form of redundant storage has become part and parcel of parsing technologies and usage-based linguistic approaches alike, the question "how much" of it is cognitively realistic and/or computationally optimally efficient is an open one. We argue that a segmentation-based approach (Bayesian Model Merging) combined with an all-subtrees approach reduces the number of rules needed to achieve an optimal performance, thus making the parser more efficient. At the same time, starting from "unsegmented wholes" comes closer to the acquisitional situation of a language learner, and thus adds to the cognitive plausibility of the model.

To evaluate the orthographic and phonological processing skills of developmental dyslexics, we (a) examined their abilities to exploit properties of orthographic redundancy and (b) tested whether their phonological deficit extends to spelling-to-sound connections for large-grain size units such as syllables. To assess the processing skills in dyslexics, we utilized the illusory conjunction paradigm to investigate the nature of reading units in French dyslexic and control children matched in reading age. In control children, reading units were defined by both orthographic redundancy and phonological syllable information. In dyslexics, however, reading units were defined only by orthographic redundancy. Therefore, despite their impairment in reading acquisition, developmental dyslexics have the ability to encode and exploit letter frequency co-occurrences. In contrast, their access to phonological syllables from letters was impaired, suggesting that their phonological deficit extends to large grain-size phonological units.

Previous research on the redundancy principle in multimedia learning has shown that although exact correspondence between on-screen text and narration generally impairs learning, brief labels within an animation can improve learning. To clarify and extend the theoretical and practical implications of these results, the authors of the present research examined the extent to which varying degrees of correspondence between on-screen text and narration in a multimedia lesson affects recall and transfer. In 2 experiments, college students viewed an animated and narrated PowerPoint lesson about the life cycle of a star, with different participants experiencing different degrees of correspondence between on-screen text and narration. Consistent with the redundancy principle and the dual-channel theory of multimedia learning, both experiments demonstrated impairment for on-screen text identical to the narration. As an extension of previous research on the redundancy principle, however, both experiments also demonstrated an advantage for a small amount of discrepancy between narration and on-screen text. On the other hand, too much discrepancy resulted in learning just as poor as when the on-screen text was identical to the narration. Metacognitive judgments revealed that participants tended to prefer on-screen text identical to the narration, even though recall and transfer scores showed that on-screen text worded slightly differently than the narration was better for learning. Results indicate that despite learner preferences to the contrary, slight discrepancies between on-screen text and narration can be a desirable difficulty, suggesting an extension to the redundancy principle that is consistent with the desirable difficulties framework as well as the cognitive theory of multimedia learning. (Contains 1 figure, 4 tables and 1 footnote.)

Many objects and events can be categorized in different ways, and learning multiple categories in parallel often requires flexibly attending to different stimulus dimensions in different contexts. Although infants and young children often exhibit poor attentional control, several theoretical proposals argue that such flexibility can be achieved without selective attention. If this is the case, then even young infants should be able to learn multiple dimension-context contingencies in parallel. This possibility was tested in four experiments with 14- and 22-month-olds. Learning of contingencies succeeded as long as there were multiple correlations between the context and the to-be-learned dimension. These findings suggest that infants can learn multiple dimension-context contingencies in parallel, but only when there is sufficient redundancy in the input. (Contains 3 tables and 5 figures.)

International comparisons have highlighted that the U.S. mathematics curriculum, both in terms of curriculum influences (e.g., textbooks, standards) and actual instruction, is broad and shallow. Standards-based reform is explicitly designed to improve coherence and reduce redundancy across grades. This article evaluates the redundancy of mathematics instruction after the early years of standards-based reform, using survey data from over 7,000 teachers. Instruction for teachers in consecutive grades in the same school is compared, and the redundancy of instruction is compared with the redundancy of state standards. Results indicate continuing problems of instructional redundancy, with upwards of 60% of instructional time at each grade on content taught in previous grades. Topics are continually introduced to the curriculum but leave more slowly; middle school instruction is broader and more redundant than elementary school instruction. State standards are also highly redundant, though there is no apparent relationship between the redundancy of state standards and the redundancy of instruction. (Contains 2 figures, 9 tables, and 2 notes.)

This study was designed to examine the effect of the redundancy principle in a multimedia presentation constructed for foreign language vocabulary learning on undergraduate students' retention. The underlying hypothesis of this study is that when the students are exposed to the material in multiple ways through animation, concurrent narration, and concurrent text (ANT), the learning and the retention will have better results in foreign language learning. This small study is expected to contribute to the cognitive theory of multimedia learning literature in three ways. First, the study was conducted in an ecologically more valid environment than Mayer's experiments, because the experiment was done through authentic classroom experience. Unlike the experiments done in Mayer's cognitive laboratory, this study was done within regular classroom settings (Mayer et al., 2001). Classroom research is an important way to establish external validity of findings when using multimedia. Second, the study was done in a different content area, foreign language learning. It was suggested by Plass and Jones (2005, p. 483) that an area for future research is "the integration of second-language acquisition theory and cognitive theories of multimedia learning." Third, the study was conducted with non-Turkish speaking students, which is also another contribution to the literature on multimedia learning. Overall, the results show that adding on-screen text to a multimedia presentation with animation and narration helped students to learn new vocabulary in a previously unfamiliar foreign language (Contains 4 tables and 2 figures.)

We propose a functional version of extended redundancy analysis that examines directional relationships among several sets of multivariate variables. As in extended redundancy analysis, the proposed method posits that a weighed composite of each set of exogenous variables influences a set of endogenous variables. It further considers endogenous and/or exogenous variables functional, varying over time, space, or other continua. Computationally, the method reduces to minimizing a penalized least-squares criterion through the adoption of a basis function expansion approach to approximating functions. We develop an alternating regularized least-squares algorithm to minimize this criterion. We apply the proposed method to real datasets to illustrate the empirical feasibility of the proposed method.

Wikis as shared digital artifacts may enable users to participate in processes of knowledge building. To what extent and with which quality knowledge building can take place is assumed to depend on the interrelation between people's prior knowledge and the information available in a wiki. In two experimental studies we examined the impact on learning and knowledge building of the redundancy (Study 1) and polarity (Study 2) between participants' prior knowledge and information available in the wiki. Based on the co-evolution model of cognitive and social systems, external assimilation and accommodation were used as dependent variables to measure knowledge building. The results supported the hypotheses that a medium level of redundancy and a high level of polarity foster external accommodation processes. External assimilation was stimulated by low redundancy and a high level of polarity. Moreover, we found that individual learning was influenced by the degree of external assimilation. (Contains 4 figures.)

An analysis of educational programs in the Urals region of Russia shows how institutions may cooperate more by sharing programs and by specializing in those programs in which they are strongest. While competition is a necessary mechanism for improvements in educational quality, overlapping and redundant programs need to be avoided. (Contains 1 note.) [This article was translated by Kim Braithwaite.]

Two experiments using the science topics of Magnetism and Light were conducted with younger learners (Year 5) who had no prior knowledge of the topics, and older learners (Year 6) who had studied the topics previously. Half of the learners were presented the information in auditory form only while the other half were presented the auditory information simultaneously with a visual presentation. Results indicated that older students with prior knowledge of the topic learned more from the auditory only presentation. For these students, the addition of visual information was redundant and so they were disadvantaged by the use of an audio-visual presentation. However, for younger students with no prior knowledge of the topic, the difference between means reversed. Some of these students might require a visual presentation to make sense of the auditory explanation. These two sets of results were discussed in the context of the redundancy and the expertise reversal effect.

Previous research indicates that infants generalize syntactic-like structures to novel exemplars in a way that has been characterized as abstract and algebraic (Marcus et al., 1999). Infants appear to learn and generalize from speech more successfully than from nonspeech stimuli (Marcus, Fernandes, & Johnson, 2007). In this series of experiments, we manipulated speech and nonspeech stimuli to identify the factors that facilitate or inhibit infants' learning and generalization. The results demonstrate that redundancy facilitates learning, even in nonlinguistic stimuli. In addition, the results indicate that learning from speech is inhibited when the speech is less redundant. These experiments suggest that speech and nonspeech stimuli are on a continuum of effectiveness, related to the ease with which infants can access and benefit from redundant information. The redundant information in the stimuli may be particularly related to the ease with which infants can detect repetition. (Contains 4 figures and 2 tables.)

Three university ranking systems in vogue have been shown in the previous issue of "Higher Education Review" to be capable of modifications to make them more parsimonious by using only about half of the number of predictors currently in use. This makes some of the predictors "redundant" as they contributed little to the overall ranking. It is suggested that these "redundant" predictors should be used for profiling the universities for useful information that aids improvement. Thus, a combination of ranking and profiling is recommended to maximise the information provided by the data. (Contains 17 tables.)

Early evidence of social referencing was examined in 5 1/2-month-old infants. Infants were habituated to 2 films of moving toys, one toy eliciting a woman's positive emotional expression and the other eliciting a negative expression under conditions of bimodal (audiovisual) or unimodal visual (silent) speech. It was predicted that intersensory redundancy provided by audiovisual (but not available in unimodal visual) events would enhance detection of the relation between emotional expressions and the corresponding toy. Consistent with predictions, only infants who received bimodal, audiovisual events detected a change in the affect-object relations, showing increased looking during a switch test in which the toy-affect pairing was reversed. Moreover, in a subsequent live preference test, they preferentially touched the 3-dimensional toy previously paired with the positive expression. These findings suggest social referencing emerges by 5 1/2 months in the context of intersensory redundancy provided by dynamic multimodal stimulation and that even 5 1/2-month-old infants demonstrate preferences for 3-dimensional objects on the basis of affective information depicted in videotaped events. (Contains 1 figure and 2 tables.)

To investigate the development of the NP selection process, preferences for overt or null Spanish subject pronouns were elicited from 139 children (5;09 to 15;08) and 30 adults in Mexico. Participants were told stories in which consecutive grammatical subjects shared the same referent (same-reference), or did not (switch-reference). In the stories, overt pronouns in same-reference were redundant, and null pronouns in switch-reference rendered reference ambiguous. Adult participants preferred null pronouns in same-reference contexts and overt pronouns in switch-reference contexts, demonstrating an avoidance of redundancy and ambiguity. Children demonstrated a tolerance for redundancy well into adolescence. A tolerance for ambiguous reference declined at age eight/nine and then progressively decreased with age. We interpret the tolerance for ambiguity as an indication that children have difficulty with perspective taking when faced with complex structures and tasks. (Contains 1 figure, 8 tables, and 20 footnotes.)

Can increasing the speed of audio narration in multimedia instruction decrease training time and still maintain learning? The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of time-compressed instruction and redundancy on learning and learners' perceptions of cognitive load. 154 university students were placed into conditions that consisted of time-compression (0%, 25%, or 50%) and redundancy (redundant text and narration or narration only). Participants were presented with multimedia instruction on the human heart and its parts then given factual and problem solving knowledge tests, a cognitive load measure, and a review behavior (back and replay buttons) measure. Results of the study indicated that participants who were presented 0% and 25% compression obtained similar scores on both the factual and problem solving measures. Additionally, they indicated similar levels of cognitive load. Participants who were presented redundant instruction were not able to perform as well as participants presented non-redundant instruction. (Contains 6 tables and 3 figures.)

This study investigated split-attention and redundancy effects in a mobile learning environment on leaf morphology of plants as a function of different combinations of media. Eighty-one fifth-grade students were randomly assigned to the following three conditions: texts with pictures embedded in the mobile device (TP condition); texts embedded in the mobile device and real objects that are outside of the mobile device (TO condition); and texts with pictures embedded in the mobile device and real objects that are outside of the mobile device (TPO condition). Differences in performance on comprehension tests and learning efficiency were examined across conditions. The TP condition was expected to perform better than the TO condition due to a split-attention effect. The TP and TO conditions were expected to perform better than the TPO condition due to a redundancy effect. The results indicated no difference between the TP and the TO condition in comprehension and learning efficiency, but the TP and TO conditions performed better than the TPO condition on both measures. The implications of the results for research and design of mobile learning environments are discussed. (Contains 2 tables and 3 figures.)

Past studies show that novel auditory stimuli, presented in the context of an otherwise repeated sound, capture participants' attention away from a focal task, resulting in measurable behavioral distraction. Novel sounds are traditionally defined as rare and unexpected but past studies have not sought to disentangle these concepts directly. Using a cross-modal oddball task, we contrasted these aspects orthogonally by manipulating the base rate and conditional probabilities of sound events. We report for the first time that behavioral distraction does not result from a sound's novelty "per se" but from the violation of the cognitive system's expectation based on the learning of conditional probabilities and, to some extent, the occurrence of a perceptual change from one sound to another.