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G-I transfer denotes an increase in individual performance due to group interaction, for example, because of acquiring certain skills or knowledge from the other group members. Whereas such G-I transfer has been successfully shown for problem-solving tasks, evidence for G-I transfer on quantitative estimation tasks is scarce. We address this research gap with a focus on how often a group has to interact in order to fully exploit the benefit of this learning effect. Results from two experiments support the idea that a single group interaction is sufficient to induce a stable G-I transfer, which reduces group members’ metric error. Smaller metric errors indicate that people improved their representation of the correct upper and lower boundaries, or what range of values is plausible. In contrast to nominal groups, both members of continuously interacting groups and members of groups with only one initial interaction exhibited stable G-I transfer, and the size of this transfer did not significantly differ between the latter two conditions. Furthermore, we found evidence for differential weighting of group members’ individual contributions that goes beyond sheer individual capability gains under certain circumstances, namely in tasks with a population bias.

In social cognition, knowledge-based validation of information is usually regarded as relying on strategic and resource-demanding processes. Research on language comprehension, in contrast, suggests that validation processes are involved in the construction of a referential representation of the communicated information. This view implies that individuals can use their knowledge to validate incoming information in a routine and efficient manner. Consistent with this idea, Experiments 1 and 2 demonstrated that individuals are able to reject false assertions efficiently when they have validity-relevant beliefs. Validation processes were carried out routinely even when individuals were put under additional cognitive load during comprehension. Experiment 3 demonstrated that the rejection of false information occurs automatically and interferes with affirmative responses in a nonsemantic task (epistemic Stroop effect). Experiment 4 also revealed complementary interference effects of true information with negative responses in a nonsemantic task. These results suggest the existence of fast and efficient validation processes that protect mental representations from being contaminated by false and inaccurate information. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)

In the present study we measured the eye movements of a large sample of 2nd grade German speaking children and a control group of adults during a silent reading task. To be able to directly investigate the interaction of word length and frequency effects we employed controlled sentence frames with embedded target words in an experimental design in which length and frequency were manipulated independently of one another. Unlike previous studies which have investigated the interaction of word length and frequency effects in children, we used age-appropriate word frequencies for children. We found significant effects of word length and frequency for both children and adults while effects were generally greater for children. The interaction of word length and frequency was significant for children in gaze duration and total viewing time eye movement measures but not for adults. Our results suggest that children rely on sublexical decoding of infrequent words, leading to greater length effects for infrequent than frequent words while adults do not show this effect when reading children’s reading materials. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)

This study investigated the reading behavior of 15-year-old students while reading texts and answering corresponding multiple-choice questions. The availability of the texts during question answering was manipulated experimentally. Allocation of resources to several cognitive processes at the word, sentence, and text level was measured by decomposing word-by-word reading times in mixed-model analyses. Results showed that resource allocation was systematically related to measures of verbal ability and test performance. Students with higher verbal ability and better comprehension encoded infrequent concepts more carefully, spent more time on conceptual integration, and updated their situation model more carefully. In addition, reading time components associated with high-level integration processing proved more important when students were unable to reread the texts during question answering. This finding provides support for the claim that test performance without text availability is more sensitive to the quality of the mental representation that readers form online while reading. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)

Background German children do not formally learn letter‐sounds before school entry. In this study, we evaluated kindergarten children's sensitivity to the frequency of letters and visually similar symbols in child‐directed texts, how it develops and whether it predicts early reading abilities. Method In a longitudinal study from kindergarten to primary school, children were asked to judge whether a presented alphabetic (e.g., A) or non‐alphabetic symbol (e.g., #) was a letter. High and low frequency was varied for both types of symbols. Furthermore, we analysed whether later reading abilities were predicted by this letter judgement ability. Results Before school entry, children had difficulties in distinguishing frequent non‐alphabetic symbols from letters. Furthermore, letter judgement in kindergarten predicted reading abilities in first grade. Conclusions Children derive some knowledge about letters from the frequency of co‐occurrence of letters and symbols in texts. The ability to distinguish letters from non‐alphabetic symbols predicts early reading. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved)

Background: In Germany, there is a substantial gap in reading literacy between monolingual children and their L2-speaking peers. Nevertheless, it is still unclear where these performance differences are rooted. Methods: We investigated children of grades 5, 6 and 7 with comparable socio-economic status, who completed a battery of tests assessing their linguistic and executive functioning skills as well as their reading performance on the letter, word, sentence and text level. Results: Whereas L1 speakers showed better linguistic skills, there was no difference between groups in executive functioning. After controlling for individual differences on each level of reading, groups only differed in text comprehension. This effect, however, disappeared when participants’ linguistic skills were additionally controlled. Conclusions: In sum, results show that reading problems in L2 speakers cannot be attributed to deficits on specific component processes of reading, but to a lack of linguistic skills, which negatively affects reading comprehension. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved)

With the Developmental Lexicon Project (DeveL), we present a large-scale study that was conducted to collect data on visual word recognition in German across the lifespan. A total of 800 children from Grades 1 to 6, as well as two groups of younger and older adults, participated in the study and completed a lexical decision and a naming task. We provide a database for 1,152 German words, comprising behavioral data from seven different stages of reading development, along with sublexical and lexical characteristics for all stimuli. The present article describes our motivation for this project, explains the methods we used to collect the data, and reports analyses on the reliability of our results. In addition, we explored developmental changes in three marker effects in psycholinguistic research: word length, word frequency, and orthographic similarity. The database is available online. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved)

In the present study we focus on the component processes of reading comprehension in adolescents. To accomplish this we applied the component processes task (CPT, Hannon & Daneman, 2001) in two connected studies to assess higher-level reading comprehension processes and the cognitive-components-resource (CC-R, Hannon, 2012) model to structure the pattern of relationships between word-level and higher-level processes, working memory, and reading comprehension. Our results indicate that the component processes of reading comprehension can be differentiated in German speaking adolescents and that approaches such as the CC-R are suitable for modeling individual differences in their comprehension processes. The pattern of relationships between processes and cognitive resources was found to be comparable between girls and boys as well as L1 and L2 German speakers, although mean differences were found in both comparisons. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)

This study investigated the relations between teachers’ pedagogical beliefs and students’ self-reported engagement in learning from texts with instructional pictures. Participants were the biology, geography, and German teachers of 46 classes (Grades 5–8) and their students. Teachers' instructional behaviors and students' engagement in learning from texts with instructional pictures were assessed by means of student ratings. Teachers' beliefs about using texts with instructional pictures in their teaching were assessed by a self-report questionnaire. Results showed that the more teachers believed that students should be taught clear strategies on how to learn from texts with instructional pictures the more engagement was reported by their students. A multilevel mediation model showed that the association between teachers’ beliefs and students' self-reported engagement was mediated by teachers' perceived instructional behavior. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved)

Children have been found to use units such as syllables and morphemes in fine-grained reading processes, before they transition to a coarse-grained, holistic route. Which units they prefer at different stages in reading development is unresolved. The present study compares the use of syllables and morphemes. Second graders, fourth graders, and adults performed a lexical decision task on multimorphemic and monomorphemic words and pseudowords that were visually disrupted either syllable-congruent or syllable-incongruent (i.e., morpheme-congruent in multimorphemic items). Syllables turned out to be the preferred unit of fine-grained processing for second graders, while fourth graders also used morphemes when morphemes were emphasized by the presentation format. Moreover, the study supports the assumption that children rely more on fine-grained processing, while adults have more coarse-grained processing. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved)

Children in transition from kindergarten to school develop fundamental skills important for the acquisition of reading and writing. Previous research pointed toward substantial correlations between specific language- and music-related competencies as well as positive transfer effects from music on pre-literacy skills. However, until now the relationship between diverse music and language competencies remains unclear. In the present study, we used a comprehensive approach to clarify the relationships between a broad variety of language and music skills on different levels, not only between but also within domains. In order to do so, we selected representative language- and music-related competencies and systematically compared the performance of N = 44 5- to 7-year-old children with a control group of N = 20 young adults aged from 20 to 30. Competencies were organized in distinct levels according to varying units of vowels/sounds, words or syllables/short melodic or rhythmic phrases, syntax/harmony and context of a whole story/song to test for their interrelatedness within each domain. Following this, we conducted systematic correlation analyses between the competencies of both domains. Overall, selected competencies appeared to be appropriate for the measurement of language and music skills in young children with reference to comprehension, difficulty and a developmental perspective. In line with a hierarchical model of skill acquisition, performance on lower levels was predictive for the performance on higher levels within domains. Moreover, correlations between domains were stronger for competencies reflecting a similar level of cognitive processing, as expected. In conclusion, a systematic comparison of various competencies on distinct levels according to varying units turned out to be appropriate regarding comparability and interrelatedness. Results are discussed with regard to similarities and differences in the development of language and music skills as well as in terms of implications for further research on transfer effects from music on language. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)

We investigated whether beginning bilingual readers activate orthographic as well as semantic representations in both of their languages while reading in one of them. Balanced bilingual third graders who were learning to read concurrently in German and English completed two lexical decision tasks, one in each language, including cognates, false friends, and matched control words. Results showed a processing advantage for cognates over controls in both languages, indicating that the facilitation effect is driven by the level of balanced language proficiency rather than by experience with print. Except for lower accuracy scores in German, false friends did not differ in their processing from controls, pointing to the presence of semantic-to-orthographic feedback already in the beginning of reading acquisition. Confirming assumptions by the bilingual interactive activation plus (BIA+) model as well as the revised hierarchical model (RHM), findings suggest that in their strategy to resolve orthographic ambiguity, balanced bilingual children are more comparable to bilingual adults than to child second-language (L2) learners. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved)

Various initiatives have recently been launched to attract more teachers with immigrant backgrounds, under the assumption that they are better equipped to teach in multicultural contexts. However, whether teachers differ in their professional competence to cater for students with immigrant backgrounds has not yet been empirically established, and it remains unclear whether any such differences would be attributable to the teachers' own immigration background. Based on the COACTIV model of teachers' professional competence, and drawing on a sample of 433 trainee teachers with and without immigrant backgrounds, this study (a) investigated trainee teachers' enthusiasm, self-efficacy. and prejudices with respect to teaching students with immigrant backgrounds and (b) tested whether the relationship between immigration background and these variables was mediated by multicultural beliefs. Results from structural equation modeling confirmed that multicultural beliefs had an indirect effect: participants with immigrant backgrounds reported higher multicultural beliefs which were in turn associated with higher self-efficacy and enthusiasm and lower levels of prejudice. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved)

In this study, we looked at masked morphological priming effects in German children and adults beyond mean response times by taking into account response time distributions. We conducted an experiment comparing suffixed word primes (kleidchen-KLEID), suffixed nonword primes (kleidtum-KLEID), nonsuffixed nonword primes (kleidekt-KLEID), and unrelated controls (träumerei-KLEID). The pattern of priming in adults showed facilitation from suffixed words, suffixed nonwords, and nonsuffixed nonwords relative to unrelated controls, and from both suffixed conditions relative to nonsuffixed nonwords, thus providing evidence for morpho-orthographic and embedded stem priming. Children also showed facilitation from real suffixed words, suffixed nonwords, and nonsuffixed nonwords compared to unrelated words, but no difference between the suffixed and nonsuffixed conditions, thus suggesting that German elementary school children do not make use of morpho-orthographic segmentation. Interestingly, for all priming effects, a shift of the response time distribution was observed. Consequences for theories of morphological processing are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved)

Multiple choice (MC)-items are a frequently employed format used to measure reading comprehension.. In a study with 366 students we replicate the finding of Rost and Sparfeldt (2007) who found that MC-items can be solved without reading the relevant text in German. In addition, we show that responses to MC reading comprehension items with available text are influenced both by general verbal resources, as well as processes required to generate text coherence. This suggests that MC-items do also measure reading specific comprehension processes. Our results also indicate that similar processes are used to answer MC-items when the relevant text is not available. The measurement of these processes, however, becomes increasingly unreliable when text information is reduced. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved)

The developmental trajectory of the use of morphemes is still unclear. We investigated the emergence of morphological effects on visual word recognition in German in a large sample across the complete course of reading acquisition in elementary school. To this end, we analyzed lexical decision data on a total of 1,152 words and pseudowords from a large cross-sectional sample of German children from the beginning of Grade 2 through 6, and a group of adults. We expand earlier evidence by (a) explicitly investigating processing differences between compounds, prefixes and suffixes, (b) taking into account vocabulary knowledge as an indicator for interindividual differences. Results imply that readers of German are sensitive to morphology in very early stages of reading acquisition with trajectories depending on morphological type and vocabulary knowledge. Facilitation from compound structure comes early in development, followed by facilitation from suffixes and prefixes later on in development. This indicates that stems and different types of affixes involve distinct processing mechanisms in beginning readers. Furthermore, children with higher vocabulary knowledge benefit earlier in development and to a greater extent from morphology. Our results specify the development and functional role of morphemes as reading units. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved)

In this article we present a new method for estimating children’s total vocabulary size based on a language corpus in German. We drew a virtual sample of different lexicon sizes from a corpus and let the virtual sample 'take' a vocabulary test by comparing whether the items were included in the virtual lexicons or not. This enabled us to identify the relation between test performance and total lexicon size. We then applied this relation to the test results of a real sample of children (grades 1–8, aged 6 to 14) and young adults (aged 18 to 25) and estimated their total vocabulary sizes. Average absolute vocabulary sizes ranged from 5900 lemmas in first grade to 73,000 for adults, with significant increases between adjacent grade levels except from first to second grade. Our analyses also allowed us to observe parts of speech and morphological development. Results thus shed light on the course of vocabulary development during primary school. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved)

This paper provides a summary of the main issues that arose in the final 'Discussion' session at the Volkswagen Workshop on Developmental Eye-tracking Research in Reading held in Hannover, Germany, October 2013. The Workshop focused on eye movement research investigating reading development, that is, change in reading performance with age. Development was considered both in relation to children as they changed from novice to more efficient readers, as well as change in reading performance in older adult readers, usually associated with a decline in reading efficiency. The final Discussion session provided an opportunity for attendees to comment on, discuss, and debate any issues that arose in the meeting that they felt were important. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)

Many low-skill readers have problems with visual word recognition. In particular, low-skill readers show a substantial nonword reading deficit that is attributed to deficits in sub-lexical processing. In this study, I examined whether the nonword deficits of German 14-year-old low-skill readers were associated with inefficient use of multi-letter information. In a lexical-decision experiment, words and nonwords were presented in standard format and in MiXeD cAsE format which has been shown to be especially disrupting for sub-lexical processing. When the stimuli were presented in standard format, low-skill readers showed a substantial nonword reading deficit, that is they were generally slower than high-skill readers, but had special problems with decoding nonwords. However, when stimuli were presented in MiXeD cAsE, low- and high-skill readers showed equal impairments in nonword processing. This finding indicates that low-skill readers do not use context-sensitive multi-letter rules during phonological assembly in normal reading. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)