Reconsidering Informed and Participatory Citizenship in the Current Media Ecosystem

The focus of this chapter is on how changes in the media landscape have forced the reconsideration of the way in which ‘memory’, ‘knowledge’, and ‘informed citizenship’ are understood, defined, and researched. Thus, for example, journalism needs to take account of the phenomenon of so-called news grazing (the active consumption of news by flipping through channels and skipping unwanted material) and that of incidental news exposure (unintended exposure to news when media users go online for non-news functions). Traditional views of informed citizenship (as simply acquiring appropriate facts and information) are challenged by calls to include applied understanding and comprehension of social issues and emotional responses to those issues. The chapter is critical of an excessive reliance on verbal tests of memory and stresses the need to develop visual measures, given that the human brain is better adapted for visual than verbal processing.

Influence of Multimedia and Cognitive Strategies in Deep and Surface Verbal Processing

The traditional view of linguistic-verbal intelligences focuses on individual linguistic abilities at the levels of phonology, syntax, and semantics. This chapter discusses the individual linguistic abilities from a text-comprehension perspective. The chapter examines the roles of multimedia and cognitive prompts in deep and surface verbal processing. Drawn from research in working memory, multimedia learning, and deep processing, a theoretical framework is proposed to promote learners' deep and surface learning in reading. Evidence from empirical studies are reviewed to support the underlying theoretical assumptions of the framework. The theoretical and practical significance of the theoretical framework is discussed with suggestions for future research.

All talk? Left temporal alpha oscillations are not specific to verbal-analytical processing during conscious motor control

The present study tested the validity of inferring verbal-analytic motor processing from EEG left-temporal alpha activity. Participants (n = 20) reached for and transport a jar under three conditions: one control condition and two self-talk conditions aimed at eliciting either task-unrelated verbal processing or task-related conscious control, while 32-channel EEG and kinematics were recorded. Compared to the control condition, both self-talk conditions elicited greater self-reported levels of verbal processing, but only the task-related self-talk condition was accompanied by greater left temporal activity (i.e., EEG alpha power decreased) during movement production. However, this increase was not localised to the left temporal region but was rather evident over all scalp regions examined, suggesting an interpretation more consistent with diminished neural efficiency. No effects for left temporal-frontal (T7-Fz) connectivity were detected across conditions. Our results failed to endorse left-temporal EEG alpha activity as valid index of verbal-analytic processing during motor tasks.

Young Bilingual Children’s Spelling Strategies: A Comparative Study of 6- to 7-Year-Old Bilinguals and Monolinguals

Developing literacy in two languages can be challenging for young bilingual children. This longitudinal study investigates the effects of bilingualism in the spelling strategies of English-Portuguese speaking children. A total of 88 six-to-seven-year-old bilinguals and monolinguals were followed during one academic year and data gathered on a range of verbal and written language skills and non-verbal measures while controlling for SES. For both bilinguals and monolinguals letter knowledge, phonological awareness and word concept were significant predictors of spelling. However, non-verbal reasoning played an increasing role in explaining spelling variance for bilinguals, suggesting that learning to spell in two alphabetic languages places more demands on non-verbal processing skills. Spelling error analyses further revealed that bilinguals when compared to monolinguals showed more reliance on phonological strategies, less compliance with the L1 orthographic system and at times transference from L2. The results suggest important implications for our understanding of spelling acquisition and the development of effective intervention practices for bilingual children.

Music Therapists’ Preparation for Song Discussion: Meaning-Making With the Music

Songs are powerful catalysts and resources for change processes in music psychotherapy. Not surprisingly, music therapists often invite clients to listen to recordings of popular songs. A common song listening method is song discussion, in which a therapist selects a relevant song to explore with a client or group and facilitates the listening and subsequent verbal processing. In the relevant music therapy literature, lyrics assume a primary focus (i.e., lyric analysis), and yet, the music of a song, as integrated with its lyrics, impacts both client’s and therapist’s meaning-making and is therefore crucial to take into account. The purpose of the present investigative essay is to encourage music therapists to give attention to the music of recorded songs as they plan to facilitate song discussion. Herein I present a conceptualization of recorded popular songs and consider how one makes meaning from song listening processes. I urge therapists to prepare for song discussion through careful phenomenological listening and introspective interpretation. Finally, I describe procedures of a developing model for aural song analysis and interpretation based on Bruscia’s Improvisation Assessment Profiles (IAPs) with an abbreviated example viewed through multiple theoretical perspectives.

Prior Verbal Description of Novel Stimuli Improves the Learning of Information Integration Categories but not Rule-Described Categories

A prominent theory of category learning assumes that people rely on two parallel and competing systems that make use of either the abstraction of verbal rules (explicit system) or the gradual association of the category exemplars with the appropriate response (implicit system). Because the explicit system relies on verbal processing, we hypothesized that priming the verbal system by asking participants to provide a verbal description of some of the stimuli prior to classification would enhance the learning of rule-described categories but would have no effect on the learning of information integration categories. Our results failed to confirm the hypothesis, and we observed the opposite pattern: prior verbal description enhanced learning of the information integration categories but not the rule-described categories. Our data and subsequent modelling suggest that participants in both categories tended to rely on a rule-based strategy, but participants were quicker to abandon that strategy when they had prior exposure to the stimuli.