A phase in development when the organism is sensitive or has a greater susceptibility to particular forms of experience and learning that may be essential to later behaviour, and which is followed by a period of less sensitivity. It should be distinguished from ‚aacritical period‚aa that refers among other things to a period in life …
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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 …
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
Semantic pathway
A system of mappings within a connectionist model of reading connecting orthographic and phonological units of representation via meaning. See Connectionism, Orthographic reading skills, Semantics
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 …
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-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-regulation
The process of controlling one’s own behavior or internal states. See Self
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, …
Self-recognition
The ability of an organism to recognise itself, most often referenced by recognition of the physical self. It is measured by observing people‚was reaction to their mirror image. Prior to the middle of the second year of life, the human infant does not show self-recognition. Of the great apes only chimpanzees, but not gorillas and …