Writing direction and language activation affect how Arabic-English bilingual speakers map time onto space.

We investigated whether writing direction and language activation influence how bilingual speakers map time onto space. More specifically, we investigated how Arabic-English bilingual speakers conceived where (e.g.

The interplay between inhibitory control and metaphor conventionality.

When a metaphor is first encountered (lawyers are sharks), several meanings are activated, but the literal ones (lawyers have fins) need to be inhibited to successfully compute the figurative meaning (lawyers are aggressive). With repeated exposure that metaphor becomes conventionalized, and its figurative meaning may be easily accessible without the need to inhibit the corresponding literal meaning. Thus, a central question in the field, and the objective of the current project, relates to how metaphor conventionality and inhibitory control contribute to metaphor comprehension.

Why does infant stepping disappear and can it be stimulated by optic flow?

Two independent experiments (n = 22 and n = 22) showed that 2-month-old infants displayed significantly more stepping movements when supported upright in the air than when supported with their feet contacting a surface. Air- and surface-stepping kinematics were quite similar (Experiment 2). In addition, when data were collapsed across both experiments, more air steps and more donkey kicks were seen when infants were exposed to optic flows that specified backward compared to forward translation.