We studied emotion naming of individuals with different education levels in Estonia (N = 87, Mage = 70.5, SD = 9.96). In order to differentiate between different response types, a new coding system of free responses was developed. Results showed that educational history was related to differences in emotion naming. When asked what people in the shown photos are feeling, participants with primary education, compared to those with longer educational histories, used fewer emotion words (e.g., ‘anxiety’, ‘love’) and more often gave responses that were not exclusively emotional (e.g., ‘good’, ‘bad’) or that lacked emotional content. Compared to photos with facial expressions, situation-only photos elicited more frequent use of emotion words overall; however higher age was associated with fewer emotion words in response to situation-only photos. Free responses revealed variation in how participants interpreted the same material and showed how these interpretations shaped whether and which emotions they named. As emotion recognition is verbally mediated, emotion recognition studies can capture how people name the emotions they recognised rather than emotion recognition itself. The findings suggest that there are differences in emotion naming related to the developmental level of verbal thought that may remain obscured when responses are restricted to predefined response options.
Lexical coverage constrains second-language comprehension, yet limited evidence shows how beginners can be moved efficiently toward the coverage levels required for functionally manageable input, particularly in morphologically complex, less commonly taught languages. This classroom-based quasi-experimental study compared negotiation-based interactive vocabulary instruction with explicit form-meaning instruction among 60 adult beginners of Modern Standard Arabic enrolled in two intact classes. Both conditions received the same 160 high-frequency lemmas over eight weeks and equivalent vocabulary-focused instructional time. Vocabulary knowledge and passage-linked lexical coverage were assessed before instruction, immediately afterwards, and four weeks later; contextually appropriate oral vocabulary use was assessed at the two post-intervention occasions. Mixed-design analyses showed significant Condition × Time interactions for total vocabulary knowledge and lexical coverage. The interactive condition increased from 18.30 to 37.80 points on the 50-item vocabulary test, compared with 17.50 to 28.90 in the explicit comparison condition. Mean estimated lexical coverage reached 92.5
As a conceptual domain, time is a salient part of human life. Describing time and its relation to human thought is challenging yet essential for understanding human nature. In Indonesia, prior studies have concentrated on the structure of time expressions and grammatical time markers, leaving perceptions of time comparatively understudied. This preliminary study addresses this gap by investigating how a non-representative sample of 141 Indonesian participants, predominantly Javanese (75.9
Research has demonstrated reduced emotional reactivity in a second- (L2) compared to a first language (L1). One explanation for this states that L2 use is more cognitively demanding and thus leaves fewer resources available for emotion processing. Here, we specifically investigated this notion of differences in cognitive load during L1 and L2 use. EEG was used to investigate mismatch negativity during an auditory oddball paradigm. Native Swedish speakers with L2 English were asked to read text excerpts in their L1 and L2, whilst simultaneously listening to standard and deviant auditory tones to be ignored. The results showed significant oddball effects (i.e., mismatch negativity) in L1 but not in L2. Together with a lower accuracy in the L2 condition, these results imply a higher cognitive load during L2 reading. These findings are explained within a resource allocation framework and are suggested as a possible explanation of the underlying mechanisms of the foreign language effect.
