The influence of evaluative right/wrong feedback on phonological and semantic processes in word learning

The role of intrinsic reward in adolescent word learning

Relatively little work has focused on why we are motivated to learn words. In adults, recent experiments have shown that intrinsic reward signals accompany successful word learning from context. In addition, the experience of reward facilitated long-term memory for words. In adolescence, developmental changes are seen in reward and motivation systems as well as in reading and language systems. Here, in the face of this developmental change, we ask whether adolescents experience reward from word learning, and how the reward and memory benefit seen in adults is modulated by age. We used a naturalistic reading paradigm, which involved extracting novel word meanings from sentence context without the need for explicit feedback. By exploring ratings of enjoyment during the learning phase, as well as recognition memory for words a day later, we assessed whether adolescents show the same reward and learning patterns as adults. We tested 345 children between the ages of 10-18 (N > 84 in each 2-year age-band) using this paradigm. We found evidence for our first prediction: children aged 10-18 report greater enjoyment for successful word learning. However, we did not find evidence for age-related change in this developmental period, or memory benefits. This work gives us greater insight into the process of language acquisition and sets the stage for further investigations of intrinsic reward in typical and atypical development. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: We constantly learn words from context, even in the absence of explicit rewards or feedback. In adults, intrinsic reward experienced during word learning is linked to a dopaminergic circuit in the brain, which also fuels enhancements in memory for words. We find adolescents also report enhanced reward or enjoyment when they successfully learn words from sentence context. The relationship between reward and learning is maintained between the ages of 10 and 18. Unlike in adults, we did not observe ensuing memory benefits.

The Role of Feedback in the Statistical Learning of Language-Like Regularities

In language learning, learners engage with their environment, incorporating cues from different sources. However, in lab-based experiments, using artificial languages, many of the cues and features that are part of real-world language learning are stripped away. In three experiments, we investigated the role of positive, negative, and mixed feedback on the gradual learning of language-like statistical regularities within an active guessing game paradigm. In Experiment 1, participants received deterministic feedback (100%), whereas probabilistic feedback (i.e., 75% or 50%) was introduced in Experiment 2. Finally, Experiment 3 explored the impact of mixed probabilistic feedback (33% positive, 33% negative, 33% no feedback). The results showed that cross-situational learning of words was observed without feedback, but participants were able to learn structural regularities of the miniature language only when feedback was provided. Interestingly, the presence of positive feedback was particularly helpful for the learner, promoting more in-depth learning of the artificial language.

Entering into a self-regulated learning mode prevents detrimental effects of feedback removal on memory

Incentives can decrease performance by undermining intrinsic motivation. How such an interplay of external reinforcers and internal self-regulation influences memory processes, however, is less known. Here, we investigated their interaction on memory performance while learning the meaning of new-words from their context. Specifically, participants inferred congruent meanings of new-words from semantic context (congruent trials) or lack of congruence (incongruent trials), while receiving external feedback in the first or second half of trials only. Removing feedback during learning of congruent word meanings lowered subsequent recognition rates a day later, whereas recognition remained high in the group, which received feedback only in the second half. In contrast, feedback did not substantially alter recognition rates for learning that new-words had no congruent meanings. Our findings suggest that external reinforcers can selectively impair memories if internal self-regulated processes are not already established, but whether they do so depends on what is being learned (specific word-meanings vs. unspecific incongruence). This highlights the relevance of self-regulated learning in education to support stable memory formation.

Timing storytime to maximize children's ability to retain new vocabulary

Shared storybook reading is a key aid to vocabulary acquisition during childhood. However, word learning research has tended to use unnaturalistic (explicit) training regimes. Using a storybook paradigm, we examined whether children (particularly those with weaker vocabularies) are more likely to retain new words if they learn them closer to sleep. Parents read their children (5- to 7-year-olds; N = 237) an alien adventure story that contained 12 novel words with illustrations at one of two training times: at bedtime or 3-5 h before bedtime. Using online tasks, parents tested their children's ability to recall the new words (production) and associate them with pictures (comprehension) immediately after hearing the story and again the following morning. As hypothesized, we replicated two findings. First, children showed overnight improvements in their ability to produce and comprehend new words when tested again the next day. Second, children with better existing vocabulary knowledge showed larger overnight gains in new word comprehension. Counter to expectations, overnight gains in comprehension were larger if the story was read 3-5 h before bedtime rather than at bedtime. These ecologically valid findings are consistent with theories that characterize word learning as a prolonged process supported by mechanisms such as consolidation and retrieval practice, with existing vocabulary knowledge acting as an important source of variability in retention. The findings provide preliminary evidence that encountering new words in stories later in the day (but not too close to sleep) may help to harness vocabulary growth and may be more beneficial than leaving shared storybook reading just for bedtime.

Cultural adaptation of the Expressive One-Word Picture Vocabulary Test, 4th edition (EOWPVT-4), for Brazilian Portuguese speakers

PURPOSE

To present a brief report of the first steps that involved the process of the cultural translation and adaptation of the Expressive One-Word Picture Vocabulary Test, fourth edition to Brazilian Portuguese (BP).

METHODS

The process of translation and adaptation of this instrument was performed in the following steps: (1) translation of the original text (English) to Brazilian Portuguese (target culture) by two different sworn translators oriented towards our research goal; (2) parity analysis between both translations and design, by a group of experts, of a synthesis version; (3) back translation of the synthesis version by two other sworn translators who did not participate in step 1; and (4) Comparison between back-translation and the original version made by a group of specialists, thus shaping the pre-final adapted version of the EOWPVT-4.

RESULTS

In the Brazilian version, the number of items from the original version was maintained and the cultural adaptation of the EOWPVT-4 to BP followed the steps recommended in the literature besides considering the differences in the socio-cultural context, showing no significant discrepancies regarding semantic equivalence. Relevant adaptations (e.g., items not representative within the Brazilian culture) were required during this process so that the instrument could be used with the same methodological rigor as the original instrument.

CONCLUSION

The process of cultural adaptation of this instrument indicated that there was theoretical, semantic, idiomatic and cultural equivalence with the original version in English.

Atypicalities in sleep and semantic consolidation in autism

Sleep is known to support the neocortical consolidation of declarative memory, including the acquisition of new language. Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is often characterized by both sleep and language learning difficulties, but few studies have explored a potential connection between the two. Here, 54 children with and without ASD (matched on age, nonverbal ability and vocabulary) were taught nine rare animal names (e.g., pipa). Memory was assessed via definitions, naming and speeded semantic decision tasks immediately after learning (pre‐sleep), the next day (post‐sleep, with a night of polysomnography between pre‐ and post‐sleep tests) and roughly 1 month later (follow‐up). Both groups showed comparable performance at pre‐test and similar levels of overnight change on all tasks; but at follow‐up children with ASD showed significantly greater forgetting of the unique features of the new animals (e.g., pipa is a flat frog). Children with ASD had significantly lower central non‐rapid eye movement (NREM) sigma power. Associations between spindle properties and overnight changes in speeded semantic decisions differed by group. For the TD group, spindle duration predicted overnight changes in responses to novel animals but not familiar animals, reinforcing a role for sleep in the stabilization of new semantic knowledge. For the ASD group, sigma power and spindle duration were associated with improvements in responses to novel and particularly familiar animals, perhaps reflecting more general sleep‐associated improvements in task performance. Plausibly, microstructural sleep atypicalities in children with ASD and differences in how information is prioritized for consolidation may lead to cumulative consolidation difficulties, compromising the quality of newly formed semantic representations in long‐term memory.