Listeners have been shown to judge second language (L2) users more negatively than L1 speakers on measures of language proficiency and even on personal qualities. However, less is known about what factors affect listener judgment which this study seeks to explore. In the study, one first language (L1) English speaker recorded her spontaneous…

Humans excel in familiar face recognition, but often find it hard to make identity judgements of unfamiliar faces. Understanding of the factors underlying the substantial benefits of familiarity is at present limited, but the effect is sometimes qualified by the way in which a face is known--for example, personal acquaintance sometimes gives rise…

While males have predominantly held leadership positions in national-level parliaments, the rising visibility of females as heads of government, despite their underrepresentation, is a significant trend. This study investigated the political resignation speeches of four female leaders in national parliaments: Australia, England, New Zealand, and…

This article examines young children's conceptualisation of the images they encounter within the familiar environments of the home and community settings, focusing on case study data from two, 4-year-old children. The data discussed are taken from a study involving a group of children aged 4-5 years. A participatory mapping approach was adopted,…

While speaking, reading and writing are identified in the Newbolt Report as components of English and are still acknowledged as such one hundred years later, Reading Aloud, which the Report ranks alongside them, is no longer accorded any prominence. The Newbolt Report connects Reading Aloud with literature and announces it as a method of…

This article contributes new empirical findings and conceptual arguments to topical debates about internationalisation 'at home' through a comparative study on how undergraduate students experience and perceive university learning and teaching by international and home academics. Drawing on survey data from a research-intensive English university,…

It is difficult to recognize the identity of a face presented in negative contrast. This difficulty, however, is substantially reduced when only the eye region is contrast positive in an otherwise negative face image, and recognition of these so-called contrast chimeras approaches performance with full positive faces. This apparently similar…

This current study draws on data from a large sample of trainee teachers in England to provide a long overdue baseline assessment of the knowledge of autism. It has particular import given the recent research that shows that 60% of autistic young people identified 'having a teacher who understands autism' as the main thing that would make school…

This longitudinal, quasi-experimental field study investigated affective forecasting as a moderator of positive intergroup contact effects among adolescents. We also examined a novel mediating mechanism that underlies this effect, namely accuracy of perceived outgroup willingness for intergroup contact. Three annual waves of survey data were used…

The 'Sawtooth Effect' is where cohort performance on high-stakes assessments drops after assessment reform, and then improves over time as test familiarity increases. Despite its importance, limited research has been conducted to date. In this study, we took a novel approach of using changes in grade boundaries (cut scores) over time as a proxy…

This study set out to examine whether shyness, an aversion to novelty and unfamiliar social situations, can affect the processes that underlie early word learning. Twenty-four-month-old children (n = 32 ) were presented with sets of one novel and two familiar objects, and it was found that shyer children were less likely to select a novel object…

The paper details the findings of a study which focused on the analysis of the cultural representation of disability in school textbooks in Iran and England. The paper argues that whilst inclusive education could facilitate the incorporating of disabled pupils into mainstream schools, there needs to be deeper examination as to how this transition…

This article seeks to explore the ways in which education functioned as a core tenet of the anti-tuberculosis (TB) movement in early twentieth-century Britain. Education can be seen to have taken on a unique role in the therapeutic regimes for TB from the late 1880s with Robert Philips's Edinburgh Dispensary system. The focus on the "social…

Previous event-related potential (ERP) work has indicated that the neural processing of action sequences develops with age. Although adults and 9-month-olds use a semantic processing system, perceiving actions activates attentional processes in 7-month-olds. However, presenting a sequence of action context, action execution and action conclusion…

Research shows that the attitudes of children and adolescents towards bullying are influenced by the school environment and their peer groups. Given the increased vulnerability to bullying for autistic children, this study explored whether neurotypical children's attitudes towards bullying and autism varied according to school exposure and…