In this study, we conducted an eye-tracking experiment to investigate the effects of sentence context and tonal information on spoken word recognition processes in Cantonese Chinese. We recruited 60 native Cantonese listeners to participate in the eye-tracking experiment. The target words (phonologically similar words) were manipulated to either (1) a congruent context or (2) an incongruent context in the experiment. The resulting eye-movement patterns in the incongruent context condition clearly revealed that (1) sentence context produced a garden-path effect in the initial stage of the spoken word recognition processes and then (2) the lexical tone of the word (bottom-up information) overrode the contextual effects to help listeners to discriminate between different similar-sounding words during lexical access. In conclusion, the patterns of eye-tracking data show the interactive processes between the lexical tone (an acoustic cue within a Cantonese word) and sentence context played in different phases to the spoken word recognition of Cantonese Chinese.

In this study, we recruited 60 native Cantonese speakers to participate in a standard cross-situational word-learning task to explore the cross-situational learning effects of minimal word pairs in Cantonese Chinese. In the cross-situational word-learning task, four different types of word pairs were used: (1) a non-minimal word pair [N]; (2) a consonant minimal word pair [C]; (3) a rime minimal word pair [R]; and (4) a tone minimal word pair [T]. The results showed that the participants could learn the word-referent mapping for all word-pair types, but they performed better on the N and T types than on the other two (i.e., C and R). Together with other previous evidence, these findings suggest that Cantonese language learners can learn and encode those phonetic details while they learn the word-referent co-occurrence probabilities. The results also suggested that the tonal information seemed to be more important than the other phonological components in Cantonese Chinese word learning.

The present study examined foreign language effects on the decisions made in a series of strategic behavioral games (e.g., the Prisoner's Dilemma, the Oligopolistic Competition, and the Volunteer's Dilemma). We recruited 154 native Chinese-speaking university students, with English as their second language, as participants. They were asked to make decisions while playing four simple behavioral games in either Chinese or English language version and to complete a Language History Questionnaire. The results showed that 1) the participants in each language group performed differently in the Prisoner's Dilemma Game and in one condition of the Volunteer's Dilemma Game which involved a relatively high level of uncertainty; and 2) foreign language proficiency, frequency of application and cultural identity triggered by the corresponding foreign language moderated the foreign language effects. This pattern of results is consistent with the Cultural Accommodation Hypothesis and the risk-aversion preference to use one's native language.

The procrastination assessment scale for students (PASS) has been used widely in evaluating the patterns of university students' procrastination on academic tasks and their procrastination behavior. The present study validated the psychometric properties of a Chinese version of the PASS (PASS-C) by recruiting two representative independent sample of Hong Kong Chinese university students (S1 used in the EFA study: 506; S2 used in the CFA study: 506). The results confirmed that this modified Chinese version is a valid and appropriate tool to assess university students' procrastination tendencies in Chinese educational settings.

The present study examined how working memory functions in the underlying mechanism of the lexical disambiguation process (in activation approach or in inhibition approach). We recruited sixty native Cantonese listeners to participate in two experimental tasks: (a) a Cantonese-version reading span task to measure their working memory (WM) capacity and (b) a standard cross-modal priming task to measure the lexical disambiguation time. The results revealed that (1) the underlying mechanism of the disambiguation process seemed favorable for an inhibition approach and (2) the frequency of the individual meanings of the ambiguous words and the numbers of their meanings might interact with the WM capacity during lexical access, particularly for the low-WM span group.

Bilingualism and multilingualism are common in almost all communities worldwide today. Research studies on the psycholinguistics of bilingualism and multilingualism in East Asia region has developed tremendously in the past 20 years. Along with the new methodologies, innovative approaches, and the development of those state-of-the-art technologies (Altarriba and Heredia (eds) in An introduction to bilingualism: principles and processes, Routledge, 2018), a lot of new research findings on this line of research have been reported.

EDITORIAL article Front. Psychol., 02 June 2021 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.696354

Previous research investigating the dynamics among the three inter-connecting variables of students' learning (i.e. learning strategies, academic performances and self-efficacy) was focused largely on Western countries. The present study attempted use a mixed approach to extend this line of research to an East Asian country. First, we randomly recruited 390 Japanese university students as participants by completing two learning inventories (LASSI and MSLQ), to investigate the interrelationships among the three variables of students' learning processes. Second, we followed up by interviewing 37 students from the same pool of participants, to complement the quantitative data. Convergent evidence generally supported that (a) there were important differences between the learning strategies used by the Japanese students with different levels of academic performance and (b) self-efficacy had equal status with the learning strategies in predicting the students' academic performances.

The present study was conducted to examine whether traditional and simplified Chinese readers (TCRs and SCRs) differed in stroke encoding in character processing by an eye-tracking experiment. We recruited 66 participants (32 TCRs and 34 SCRs) to read sentences comprising characters with different proportions and types of strokes removed in order to explore whether any visual complexity effect existed in their processing of simplified and traditional Chinese characters. The present study found a cross-script visual complexity effect and that SCRs were more influenced by visual complexity change in texical access than were TCRs. In addition, the stroke-order effect appeared to be more salient for TCRs than for SCRs.

“Learning strategies” is a generic term that normally refers to the cognitive processes of learners in learning. Learning strategies comprise a variety of learning behaviors of learners or students; for example, notetaking, organizing information, time scheduling, concentration capacity, self-motivation, and ways of memorizing information. Students will make use of the different learning strategies in their studies in order to attain a certain level of academic achievement. There are two types of learning strategies: basic and advanced learning strategies. Basic learning strategies are those lower-level cognitive abilities used by younger children in school, usually below the age of six, for example, rote memorization and simple elaboration. When the students grow older and the brain development becomes more mature, the advanced learning strategies will eventually be developed and used; such advanced learning strategies include organization of information, evaluation of information, use of external study aids, etc. Those advanced learning strategies developed and used by adolescent students can be described by the concept of metacognition. Metacognition or metacognitive thinking involves three issues: (1) metacognitive knowledge, or our knowledge about knowledge; (2) metacognitive skills, or our currently used learning strategies doings; and (3) metacognitive experiences, or our current experiences of knowing. Scholars further conclude that student learning would be more effective and efficient if students could engage themselves in this kind of metacognitive thinking when they learn. The development of metacognition and the transformation from basic to advanced learning strategies naturally coincide with the different learning phases of the learners.

Plagiarism refers to the behaviour of taking other people's work or idea as one's work or idea. Lack of understanding of plagiarism can lead to unintentional plagiarism. Unintentional plagiarism occurs not only in nursing students' writing but also in other healthcare learners. However, teaching approaches for understanding and avoiding unintentional plagiarism in healthcare education are limited. This is particularly helpful for using blending learning to address the issue of unintentional plagiarism. This editorial will describe the impact of unintentional plagiarism and propose a teaching approach called 'Understanding and Avoiding Unintentional Plagiarism' using blended learning to help avoid unintentional plagiarism. This teaching approach aims to assist healthcare teachers to deliver academic writing development programmes in three important steps: 1) Plan appropriate tasks, 2) Prepare essential resources, and 3) Perform effective delivery.

The question of how to process an ambiguous word in context has been long-studied in psycholinguistics and the present study examined this question further by investigating the spoken word recognition processes of Cantonese homophones (a common type of ambiguous word) in context. Sixty native Cantonese listeners were recruited to participate in an eye-tracking experiment. Listeners were instructed to listen carefully to a sentence ending with a Cantonese homophone and then look at different visual probes (either Chinese characters or line-drawing pictures) presented on the computer screen simultaneously. Two findings were observed. First, the results revealed that sentence context exerted an early effect on homophone processes. Second, visual probes that serve as phonological competitors only had a weak effect on the spoken word recognition processes. Consistent with previous studies, the patterns of eye-movement results appeared to support an interactive processing approach in homophone recognition.

There is an increasing interest in using experimental approaches to investigate children's acquisition of semantic and pragmatic knowledge.These areas are now being explored both in Indo-European Languages and also in Asian languages.Such cross-linguistic studies are essential to our understanding of the universal properties of language, as well as the ways in which languages can differ.The goal of this special issue is to highlight this cross-linguistic and experimental perspective on children's use of semantic and pragmatic knowledge in sentence production and comprehension.This issue contains nine papers that can be divided into four major themes: children's scope assignment, the acquisition of language specific phenomena, the relation between children's linguistic knowledge and their non-linguistic abilities, and the use of wh-words by typically developing (TD) children and by children with language delay.

AIM:This study evaluated the psychometric properties of the Chinese version of the Brief Young Adult Alcohol Consequences Questionnaire (B-YAACQ).METHOD:In this study, 1616 Chinese university students (male = 58.66%; Mage = 19.88) reporting past-year drinking experience voluntarily completed an anonymous questionnaire. Rasch analysis, reliability analysis, and linear modeling were performed to examine the psychometric properties of the Chinese version of B-YAACQ.RESULTS:Results of Rasch analysis and reliability analysis supported the assumption of uni-dimensionality, local independence, and internal consistency of the 24-item B-YAACQ in our Chinese sample. However, six items had marginal outfit statistics and/or potential gender bias; therefore, a model with 18 items was also tested after removing these items. The 18-item model showed excellent fit to the uni-dimensional model with no gender bias. However, the Pearson correlation between the 24-item and 18-item versions was r = 0.98, suggesting highly similar measurement. Both versions demonstrated concurrent validity through positive association with the Alcohol Use Disorder Identification Test (AUDIT) subscales, even after controlling for the effects of age and gender.CONCLUSION:This study is the first to validate a measurement tool for negative drinking consequences for university students in China. Despite some limitations, the original 24-item B-YAACQ was shown to have satisfactory psychometric properties when applied to Chinese university students. We recommend the shorter 18-item version without significant gender bias for testing gender differences.

Research focused on how cognitive, metacognitive or other cultural factors relate to students' academic performance in East Asian countries has grown tremendously in recent decades. With the rapid development in various aspects (cultural, economic, political and technological) in East Asian countries during the past twenty years, a lot of new research work and empirical findings to this promising line of research have emerged.

Aims: The aim of this study is to assess salivary biomarkers, i.e. cortisol, calcium, phosphate, osteocalcin, vitamin D and estradiol levels, to monitor osteopenia and stress levels in post-treatment breast cancer patients. Methods: The salivary biomarkers of forty-five female breast cancer survivors aged between 30 to 48 years were compared against twenty-eight disease-free, healthy female subjects, which act as the reference values in our study. Saliva collection was done by resting/drooling collection method (minimal oral movements). The independent unpaired t-test was used to compare the differences between the parameters of control group and patient group. Results: The salivary flow rate and the amount of saliva were not significantly different between both groups. The concentration of salivary cortisol in breast cancer survivors was significantly higher compared to healthy controls ( P <0.01). The mean concentrations of salivary calcium ( P <0.01), phosphate ( P <0.05), osteocalcin ( P <0.001), vitamin D ( P <0.001) and estradiol ( P <0.05) in the breast cancer survivor group were significantly lower than those in the control group. Conclusion: Our findings suggest that the measurement of salivary biomarkers can be considered as a useful method to monitor osteopenia and stress levels in breast cancer survivors.

This study examined the time-course of context effects on spoken word recognition during Chinese sentence processing. We recruited 60 native Mandarin listeners to participate in an eye-tracking experiment. In this eye-tracking experiment, listeners were told to listen to a sentence carefully, which ended with a Chinese homophone, and look at different visual probes (Chinese characters or different line-drawing pictures) presented concurrently on the computer screen naturally. Different types of context and probe types were manipulated in the experiment. The results showed that (1) preceding sentence context had an early effect on spoken word recognition processes and (2) phonological information of the distracters had only a negligible effect on the spoken word recognition processes. Finally, the patterns of eye-tracking results seemed to favor an interactive approach in spoken word recognition.

Previous experimental psycholinguistic studies suggested that the probabilistic phonotactics information might likely to hint the locations of word boundaries in continuous speech and hence posed an interesting solution to the empirical question on how we recognize/segment individual spoken word in speech. We investigated this issue by using Cantonese language as a testing case in the present study. A word-spotting task was used in which listeners were instructed to spot any Cantonese word from a series of nonsense sound sequences. We found that it was easier for the native Cantonese listeners to spot the target word in the nonsense sound sequences with high transitional probability phoneme combinations than those with low transitional probability phoneme combinations. These results concluded that native Cantonese listeners did make use of the transitional probability information to recognize the spoken word in speech.