In this two-part study, we conducted both cross-sectional and longitudinal investigations on the relative weights of experiential, cognitive, and sociopsychological factors in adult L2 speech learning. In the cross-sectional phase (Study 1), speech was elicited from 73 Japanese speakers of English via a picture description task, and rated for accentedness and comprehensibility. These scores were linked to scores on a range of tests designed to measure aptitude, motivation, and anxiety. The results showed that comprehensibility was exclusively linked to experiential variables (e.g., the amount of L2 use outside classrooms), while accentedness was linked to phonemic coding ability and anxiety. In the longitudinal phase (Study 2), we tracked the same participants' L2 comprehensibility and accentedness development when they received four weeks of explicit pronunciation instruction. According to the results of pre- and post-tests, participants significantly improved the comprehensibility and accentedness of their speech regardless of cognitive and sociopsychological differences.

Recently, scholars have begun to explore the hypothesis that individual differences in domain-general auditory perception, which has been identified as an anchor of L1 acquisition, could explain some variance in postpubertal L2 learners’ segmental and suprasegmental learning in immersive settings. The current study set out to examine the generalizability of the topic to the acquisition of higher-level linguistic production skills—that is the appropriate use of diverse, rich, and abstract vocabulary. The speech of 100 Polish-English bilinguals was elicited using an interview task, submitted to corpus-/rater-based linguistic analyses, and linked to their ability to discriminate sounds based on individual acoustic dimensions (pitch, duration, and amplitude). According to the results, those who attained more advanced L2 lexical proficiency demonstrated not only more relevant experience (extensive immersion and earlier age of arrival), but also more precise auditory perception ability.

The present small-scale study explores whether working memory (WM) and language aptitude (LA) explain any variance in L2 listening comprehension beyond baseline listening ability and explicit strategy-based listening instruction in an instructed EFL setting at the tertiary level. In a pretest/posttest non-randomized group design, the experimental group (N = 19) received explicit strategy-based listening instruction for 12 hours while the control group (N = 17) followed their regular L2 listening course syllabus. L2 listening comprehension was measured with an L2 academic listening comprehension test. WM measures (Foster et al., 2015) included an operation span task (OST), a symmetry span task (SST), and a rotation span task (RST). LA was assessed with LLAMA (Meara, 2005). The findings revealed the effectiveness of strategy-based intervention for L2 listening comprehension. A hierarchical regression analysis indicated that baseline listening scores explained about 52% of the variance in the post-listening scores, while listening strategy instruction explained an additional 16% of the variance. On the other hand, WM and LA did not explain any variance in listening comprehension scores, suggesting that the two individual learner differences in the present study are not significant predictors of L2 listening comprehension.

The Language Aptitude Outside the Classroom (LAOC) study investigates the factors that contribute to successful English-learning among newly arrived parent-child immigrants. Two types of factors are considered: cognitive abilities (aptitude measured with the LLAMA tests and working memory) and contextual-affective factors (exposure and anxiety). Participants are pairs of Spanish-speaking immigrants in the US. Each pair consists of a parent and their child aged 7–16. Their English proficiency is measured longitudinally during a one-year period using a listening comprehension test, a verbal fluency test, and an oral narrative (frog story). This contribution focuses on the lexical diversity of the oral narratives (Guiraud Index). Linear mixed models were run on the entire sample and on adults and children separately using time, aptitude, working memory, exposure to English, and anxiety as predictors of lexical diversity of the oral narratives (random effect = dyad, random slope = time). The results show that the development of lexical diversity over a one-year period is predicted by exposure to the language (and, for the children, anxiety). Two subtests of the LLAMA aptitude battery are also significant predictors when the entire sample is considered, but this effect nevertheless disappears for the adults when modeled separately from the children.

Building on the extensive work conceptualizing, developing, and validating foreign language aptitude for successful second language acquisition (e.g., Skehan, 2015, in Applied Linguistics), the current project expounded the cognitive abilities relevant and instrumental to adult Japanese classroom learners’ pronunciation attainment of English /ɹ/. The speech production of 50 Japanese participants was elicited, acoustically analyzed, and linked to different aspects of their aptitude profiles (phonemic coding, associative memory, and sequence recognition). Whereas those with higher phonemic coding demonstrated better performance in a relatively easy dimension of English /ɹ/ pronunciation (lower F2 for tongue retraction), those with greater associative memory demonstrated more advanced performance in the relatively difficult dimensions of English /ɹ/ pronunciation (longer transition duration for phonemic length; lower F3 for labial/alveolar/pharyngeal constrictions). The role of incidental learning aptitude (i.e., sequence recognition) remained unclear. The findings here indicate that explicit aptitude related to phonological analysis and memory may play a key role in predicting the incidence of advanced second language segmental proficiency attainment in classroom settings.

The accelerated aging of the Canadian population is a recognized fact and leads to an increasing number of seniors with cognitive impairments (Curateur public du Québec, 2010a). This has a definite impact on health professionals who have to assess their competency to live independently and manage their finances. This decision, which has important consequences for the person, must be based on an objective and rigorous assessment. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the available tools, both in the scientific literature and in clinical settings, to better document the various components to assess seniors’ competency to live independently and manage their finances. The goal is to help practitioners who work with older people with cognitive impairments to accurately assess their ability to manage themselves and their property. A review of the relevant literature and training available, as well as three group consultations, showed that there is no consensus about the tools used to assess the capacity to take care of oneself and one’s property. Additional studies are thus needed to fill the gap in knowledge about specific tools used to assess competency.

Previous studies have consistently reported age-related changes in cognitive abilities and brain structure. Previous studies also suggest compensatory roles for specialized training, skill, and years of education in the age-related decline of cognitive function. The Stanford/VA Aviation Study examines the influence of specialized training and skill level (expertise) on age-related changes in cognition and brain structure. This preliminary report examines the effect of aviation expertise, years of education, age, and brain size on flight simulator performance in pilots aged 45–68 years. Fifty-one pilots were studied with structural magnetic resonance imaging, flight simulator, and processing speed tasks. There were significant main effects of age (p < .01) and expertise (p < .01), but not of whole brain size (p > .1) or education (p > .1), on flight simulator performance. However, even though age and brain size were correlated (r = −0.41), age differences in flight simulator performance were not explained by brain size. Both aviation expertise and education were involved in an interaction with brain size in predicting flight simulator performance (p < .05). These results point to the importance of examining measures of expertise and their interactions to assess age-related cognitive changes. (JINS, 2010, 16, 412–423.)