Internal Seminars Schedule – Term 3

Wednesdays from 11am-12pm

Please note that these seminars are one hour earlier than usual, to avoid a clash with other seminars. The seminars will be held on Microsoft Teams and a calendar invitation with a link will be sent in advance.

4 May 2022:

 This Wednesday, from 11am-12pm, we will hear from four of our first-year PhD students, who are starting to shape up the first studies of their PhD project. Please do come along to show your support. Your feedback will be appreciated. We have a variety of topics this seminar, please see the below titles and abstracts.

Presenter 1: Yunxiao Li

Title: How are People’s Perceived Probabilities Influenced by Outcomes?

Abstract: Theories of judgment and decision explain how people combine outcomes and probabilities of gambles when making a decision, generally assuming that probabilities are biased but not influenced by associated outcomes. However, empirical work has shown that extreme events are more likely to come to mind first, leading to accounts such as the utility-weighted sampling model (Lieder et al., 2018). But do outcomes beyond the first few come to mind in the way in which utility-weighted sampling predicts? Here, we conduct an experiment using random generation paradigm that allows us to evaluate both what outcomes first come to mind, as well as the long-run subjective probabilities of events.

Presenter 2: Pip Brown

Title: Trust Issues: Adolescent Epistemic Vigilance towards Online Sources

Abstract: The development of epistemic vigilance towards online information is ever more crucial for adolescents in the context of widespread online ‘information pollution’ (Milner and Phillips, 2021). While pre-adolescents have demonstrated selective mistrust in online sources with typographical errors, they have difficulty in using semantic error information to make decisions about what information to trust (Einav et al., 2020). We use a selective trust task to investigate whether this pattern of results continues into adolescence, and whether an accuracy prime (Pennycook et al., 2021) can help improve adolescents’ epistemic vigilance towards both semantic and typographical errors online. This presentation will discuss interim results from a group of older adolescents and explore their implications for our understanding of their critical digital literacy.

Presenter 3: Yuyao Cheng

Title: Early Risks and Mechanisms Associated with Eating Disorders in Adolescence

Abstract: Eating disorders are psychiatric disorders with the highest mortality rate and frequently onset in adolescence and young adulthood. Given the negative consequences of eating disorders, it is critical to understand early risk factors and mechanisms. As pregnancy and early childhood are significant periods for the growth and development of children, this research will use a biopsychosocial model to examine early risks and mechanisms in the prenatal period, infancy, and childhood that increase the risk of eating disorders in adolescence. Data for this research will be drawn from the UK ALSPAC longitudinal cohort.

Presenter 4: Morgan Appleton

Title: Syntactic Priming in L1 and L2 English Speaking Children in the UK: What can we learn about developing representations

Abstract: Much of the existing research into syntactic priming in L2 English speaking demographics sharing a common first language, which is not representative of hyper diverse populations such as in the UK. This disparity is even more apparent in priming research using children. The present study aims to examine developing representations of syntactic priming in L1 and L2 English speaking children in British classrooms. Priming will be measured using prenominal adjective and relative clause prompts to investigate language comprehension development. This first study aims to be the first in a comprehensive enquiry into childhood syntactic priming between L1 and L2 speakers.

11 May 2022:

18 May 2022

Seminar co-ordinator: Suzanne Aussems

Aleksandra Kappenberg from the Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg will be giving a talk titled Multimodal Initiations and Reactions of Second Language Learners in Shared Picture Book Reading Interactions (abstract below).

Abstract:

Initiating conversations and responding to initiations of others via nonverbal (gestural) and verbal means are prerequisites for participating in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) interactions. However, research to date has not addressed the multimodal initiations and responses of young second language learners (SLLs) in natural ECEC settings, who are especially challenged to participate in their new linguistic environment. This study investigated their initiations and responses during shared picture book reading interactions with ECEC practitioners with a focus on modalities, strategies and types of utterances. Participants were 30 SLLs (M_Age = 54.03 months) in German ECEC institutions. Video recordings of shared picture book reading interactions were annotated for nonverbal (gestural), verbal and multimodal initiation as well as response strategies.
Results showed that SLLs responded to the initiations of the practitioners predominantly verbally and initiated interactions mostly multimodally. Furthermore, the children produced more combinations of multi-word utterances and gestures in their initiations than in their responses. These findings complement the body of work demonstrating the varied communicative skills young SLLs use in their interactions as well as by underlining the importance of gestural cues in everyday ECEC interactions.

Organised by: Dr Marta Wesierska

Email for teams link: marta.wesierska@warwick.ac.uk

Forthcoming talks: