Understanding complex concepts is necessary for gaining knowledge in academic fields and for making informed decisions, e.g., getting vaccinated or taking out a mortgage. Recent news about misinformation on diverse and high-stakes topics has underscored the importance of studying factors influencing concept formation. Much of concept learning occurs in classrooms in a second language (L2) for the world’s bilingual population, so the challenge in understanding new concepts is compounded by the language barrier in L2 vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension. Although language is a dominant interface for accessing and storing concepts, pictorial and structural representations of knowledge moderate successful concept learning. Previous research using people’s first language (L1) has shown that knowledge presented with images result in better comprehension, while concept maps make knowledge structure more explicit and promote learning retention. The results are mixed in whether and how multimodal presentations support concept learning in non-native learners, perhaps because processing of L2 multimodal materials are susceptible to cross-cultural differences and affective variables. This talk will describe emergent findings based on behavioral and electrophysiological data to show the cognitive and neural mechanisms that support concept learning in adulthood. I will also discuss implications in theories of bilingual word learning and practical instructional design in vocabulary and concept learning.
主讲人介绍
