This paper is intended as an exploration of university faculty and students’ perceptions of a number of dimensions involved in the written composition of academic texts. We analysed the responses to scale 3 in the European Writing Survey (EUWRIT) (in its Spanish version: Encuesta Europea sobre la Escritura Académica, EEEA) by a group of social science and humanities students (n = 1,030) and faculty (n = 230) from nine Spanish universities. We then examined the similarities and differences in their perceptions and established a factorial structure of the different dimensions underlying the writing process. The data indicate that both groups concur in the value assigned to both changing ideas in the course of the composition process (although this process seems to be understood differently by each group) and the revision and feedback processes. The students, however, claim to be involved in more planning and previous reading activities than the teachers perceive them to be. The significance of these results for a process-oriented perspective in academic writing is discussed.

In this paper we make a proposal that writing modality (pen-and-paper versus computer-based writing can be conceptualized as a cognitive task complexity factor. To lay ground for this theoretical proposal, we first review previous adaptations of cognitive task-based models to second language (L2) writing. We then compare pen-and-paper and computer-based writing modalities in terms of their general characteristics, outline the main tenets of multidisciplinary theoretical models which attribute learning and performance-related importance to writing modality, and review the available empirical evidence. From this we draw theoretical and empirical justification for our conceptualization of writing modality as a task complexity dimension. After outlining our conceptual view, we proceed with the review of the methods which could be used to independently assess cognitive load in paper and computer-written L2 tasks. In the conclusion, implications and suggestions for future research are provided.

Words learned first or earlier in life are processed faster, with more accuracy, and are more resistant to brain injury than words learned some time later. This phenomenon is called the age-of-acquisition (AoA) effect. Current accounts of the AoA effect place its influence in the semantic system (i.e., the semantic hypothesis), or in the irregular connections formed between representations (i.e., the arbitrary mapping hypothesis). In this study, we tested the predictions derived from these hypotheses on visual word recognition using a formal masked priming paradigm with short SOA (43 ms) and two lexical decision tasks: one in Spanish and one in English. The AoA of the target words and the orthographic and phonological relationship between primes and targets were manipulated. Results from LMM analyses showed the main effects of AoA and phonological priming and an interaction where phonological priming affected only the recognition of late-acquired words. Neither the semantic nor the arbitrary mapping hypotheses fully explain these findings. Alternative accounts such as the phonological completeness or the sensorimotor hypotheses are discussed. Las palabras aprendidas primero o más temprano en la vida se procesan más rápido, con mayor precisión y son más resistentes a lesiones cerebrales que las palabras aprendidas en un momento posterior. Este es el efecto de la edad de adquisición (EdA). Las explicaciones actuales de la EdA sitúan su influencia en el sistema semántico –la hipótesis semántica– o en las conexiones irregulares formadas entre las representaciones –la hipótesis del mapeo arbitrario. En este estudio probamos las predicciones derivadas de estas hipótesis sobre el reconocimiento visual de palabras utilizando un paradigma formal de enmascaramiento priming con un SOA corto (43 ms) y dos tareas de decisión léxica: una en español y otra en inglés. Se manipularon la EdA de las palabras target y la relación ortográfica y fonológica entre los primes y los targets. Los resultados de los análisis con LMM mostraron efectos principales de la EdA y del priming fonológico, y una interacción donde el priming fonológico solo afectó el reconocimiento de palabras adquiridas tardíamente. Ni la hipótesis semántica ni la del mapeo arbitrario explican completamente estos hallazgos. Se discuten explicaciones alternativas como la hipótesis de la completitud fonológica o la hipótesis sensoriomotora.

Latest advances in Super-Resolution (SR) have been tested with general purpose images such as faces, landscapes and objects, mainly unused for the task of super-resolving Earth Observation (EO) images. In this research paper, we benchmark state-of-the-art SR algorithms for distinct EO datasets using both Full-Reference and No-Reference Image Quality Assessment (IQA) metrics. We also propose a novel Quality Metric Regression Network (QMRNet) that is able to predict quality (as a No-Reference metric) by training on any property of the image (i.e. its resolution, its distortions...) and also able to optimize SR algorithms for a specific metric objective. This work is part of the implementation of the framework IQUAFLOW which has been developed for evaluating image quality, detection and classification of objects as well as image compression in EO use cases. We integrated our experimentation and tested our QMRNet algorithm on predicting features like blur, sharpness, snr, rer and ground sampling distance (GSD) and obtain validation medRs below 1.0 (out of N=50) and recall rates above 95\%. Overall benchmark shows promising results for LIIF, CAR and MSRN and also the potential use of QMRNet as Loss for optimizing SR predictions. Due to its simplicity, QMRNet could also be used for other use cases and image domains, as its architecture and data processing is fully scalable.

A distinctive feature of the lexicon is its susceptibility to the order in which words are acquired; those learned earlier are accessed and retrieved more quickly than those acquired later — a phenomenon known as the age-of-acquisition (AoA) effect. This study investigates how vocabulary size (i.e. word-set size), formal-lexical similarity (i.e. neighbourhood density) and semantic richness (i.e. number of meanings) influence the AoA effect in lexical recognition and production. Three experiments were conducted with Spanish-speaking participants learning Welsh words in a controlled laboratory setting. Some words (‘early’) were trained from the outset, while others (‘late’) were introduced later and interleaved with the early words. Experiment 1 (47 participants) explored the relationship between AoA and vocabulary size, showing that vocabulary size has a strengthening modulatory effect on the AoA effect in lexical decision accuracy, although the interaction was only marginally significant. Experiment 2 (27 participants) examined formal-lexical similarity, finding that AoA is unaffected by neighbourhood density. Experiment 3 (18 participants) assessed semantic richness, showing that AoA effects are modulated by the number of meanings a word possesses in a task-dependent manner: an AoA effect emerged only for two-meaning words in lexical decision, whereas it was observed only for one-meaning words in picture naming. Overall, the results provide mixed evidence for the AoA effect in word production and recognition, primarily influenced by semantic richness and task demands. While the findings mainly support the mapping hypothesis, they also challenge certain predictions derived from it, as well as from the semantic and integrated accounts.