Brain signal diversity constitutes a robust neuronal marker of the global states of consciousness. It has been demonstrated that, in comparison to the resting wakefulness, signal diversity is lower during unconscious states, and higher during psychedelic states. A plausible interpretation of these findings is that the neuronal diversity corresponds to the diversity of subjective conscious experiences. Therefore, in the present study we varied an information rate processed by the subjects and hypothesized that greater information rate will be related to richer and more differentiated phenomenology and, consequently, to greater signal diversity. To test this hypothesis speech recordings (excerpts from an audio-book) were presented to subjects at five different speeds (65, 83, 100, 117, and 135% of the original speed). By increasing or decreasing speed of the recordings we were able to, respectively, increase or decrease the presented information rate. We also included a backward (unintelligible) speech presentation and a resting-state condition (no auditory stimulation). We tested 19 healthy subjects and analyzed the recorded EEG signal (64 channels) in terms of Lempel-Ziv diversity (LZs). We report the following findings. First, our main hypothesis was not confirmed, as Bayes Factor indicates evidence for no effect when comparing LZs among five presentation speeds. Second, we found that LZs during the resting-state was greater than during processing of both meaningful and unintelligible speech. Third, an additional analysis uncovered a gradual decrease of diversity over the time-course of the experiment, which might reflect a decrease in vigilance. We thus speculate that higher signal diversity during the unconstrained resting-state might be due to a greater variety of experiences, involving spontaneous attention switching and mind wandering.

The article reports a study investigating the effects of different subtitling conditions on cognitive load, incidental vocabulary learning, and comprehension. In the study, 63 Polish intermediate learners of English were asked to watch a movie clip and subsequently to answer comprehension questions, take a vocabulary knowledge test, and fill in a self-reported cognitive load questionnaire. They were divided into three groups: one group watched the clip with Polish subtitles, one with English subtitles, and one without subtitles. The findings indicate that intralingual (L2) subtitles assist learners in vocabulary acquisition more than interlingual (L1) subtitles. Moreover, both types of subtitles lower cognitive load, which is accompanied by greater comprehension of the material presented. The results of the study offer some practical implications for EFL teachers and learners.

Although there exists a set of prescriptive rules concerning the realization of Polish nasal vowels, it can be observed that their pronunciation differs across dialects, especially in word-final position. While there is ample research on vowel nasality in Polish, sociolinguistic studies investigating the realization of nasal vowels seem to be scant and this is why we aim to fill this gap by investigating the relationship between the realization of word-final nasal vowels and different sociolinguistic factors including age, gender, education, place of residence, and style (read vs. conversational speech). Moreover, we focus on a potential change in prestige associated with the variation. Fifty native speakers of Polish living in Greater Poland were asked to read aloud a text and describe a picture. Having analysed the words containing nasal vowels word-finally, we found, inter alia, statistically significant associations between age and the variation in the realization of nasal vowels.