Semaphorins

family of proteins or cell adhesion molecules secreted by target cells, generally having repulsive influences on outgrowing axons, and which belong to immunoglobin superfamily (IgSF) . See Cell adhesion molecules (CAMs), Immunoglobin

Semantics

Generally defined as the study of the meaning of linguistic expressions, either at the level of words or sentences.  More narrowly defined, it is the study of the meaning of linguistic expressions apart from consideration of the effect that pragmatic factors (e.g., features of the context, conventions of language use and the goals of the …

Semantic bootstrapping

A hypothesized learning procedure in which children use the meaning of linguistic elements to make inferences about their word class or syntactic role (e.g., a word for an object is likely to be a noun, a word naming an agent is probably the sentence-subject).  See Developmental bootstrapping, Language development, Reading comprehension, Semantics, Syntactic bootstrapping

Self

The definitions of self are perhaps as many as the theorists who have thought about it.  Beside the bodily activities of the self of a person, including their brains and central nervous system, the self is made up of at least two major aspects.  These can be referred to as the machinery of the self …

Self-stimulation

The stimulation of sensory systems that is the consequence of the embryo‚was own behaviour or physiological activity (e.g., bird embryos hear their own vocalisations, mammalian foetuses produce amniotic fluid that they subsequently ingest) . See Behavioral embryology

Self-report questionnaire for handedness

with such inventories, individuals indicate their preferred hand for a variety of common tasks, including writing, drawing, cutting with a knife, using a toothbrush, hammer, scissors, and other utensils and tools. Participants also may be asked to rate their consistency of use on a scale with anywhere from 3 to 7 values (e.g., ‚always left‚aa, …