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Kenanidis P, Llompart M, Santos SF, Dąbrowska E. Redundancy can hinder adult L2 grammar learning: evidence from case markers of varying salience levels. Front Psychol 2024; 15:1368080. [PMID: 38840748 PMCID: PMC11150671 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1368080] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/09/2024] [Accepted: 05/01/2024] [Indexed: 06/07/2024] Open
Abstract
Grammatical redundancy is a widespread feature across languages. Although redundant cues can be seen to increase the complexity and processing burden of structures, it has been suggested that they can assist language acquisition. Here, we explored if this learning benefit can be observed from the very initial stages of second language (L2) acquisition and whether the effect of redundancy is modulated by the perceptual salience of the redundant linguistic cues. Across two experiments, three groups of adult native speakers of English were incidentally exposed to three different artificial languages; one that had a fixed word order, Verb-Object-Subject, and two in which thematic role assignment was additionally determined by a low-salient (Experiment 1) or a high-salient (Experiment 2) redundant case marker. While all groups managed to learn the novel language, our results pointed towards a hindering role of redundancy, with participants in the non-redundant condition achieving greater learning outcomes compared to those in both redundant conditions. Results also revealed that this impeding effect of redundancy on L2 learners can be attenuated by the salience of the redundant cue (Experiment 2). In conjunction with earlier findings, the present results suggest that the effect of redundancy on L2 acquisition can be differentially manifested depending on the stage of L2 development, learners' first language biases and age.
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Affiliation(s)
- Panagiotis Kenanidis
- Chair of Language and Cognition, Department of English and American Studies, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Erlangen, Germany
| | - Miquel Llompart
- Chair of Language and Cognition, Department of English and American Studies, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Erlangen, Germany
- Department of Translation and Language Sciences, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain
| | - Sara Fernández Santos
- Chair of Language and Cognition, Department of English and American Studies, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Erlangen, Germany
| | - Ewa Dąbrowska
- Chair of Language and Cognition, Department of English and American Studies, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Erlangen, Germany
- Department of English Language and Linguistics, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, United Kingdom
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2
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Dunn KJ, Frost RLA, Monaghan P. Infants' attention during cross-situational word learning: Environmental variability promotes novelty preference. J Exp Child Psychol 2024; 241:105859. [PMID: 38325061 DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2023.105859] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/30/2023] [Revised: 11/21/2023] [Accepted: 12/27/2023] [Indexed: 02/09/2024]
Abstract
Infants as young as 14 months can track cross-situational statistics between sets of words and objects to acquire word-referent mappings. However, in naturalistic word learning situations, words and objects occur with a host of additional information, sometimes noisy, present in the environment. In this study, we tested the effect of this environmental variability on infants' word learning. Fourteen-month-old infants (N = 32) were given a cross-situational word learning task with additional gestural, prosodic, and distributional cues that occurred reliably or variably. In the reliable cue condition, infants were able to process this additional environmental information to learn the words, attending to the target object during test trials. But when the presence of these cues was variable, infants paid greater attention to the gestural cue during training and subsequently switched preference to attend more to novel word-object mappings rather than familiar ones at test. Environmental variation may be key to enhancing infants' exploration of new information.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kirsty J Dunn
- Department of Psychology, Lancaster University, Lancaster LA1 4YF, UK.
| | - Rebecca L A Frost
- Department of Psychology, Edge Hill University, Ormskirk, Lancashire L39 4QP, UK
| | - Padraic Monaghan
- Department of Psychology, Lancaster University, Lancaster LA1 4YF, UK
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Mahowald K, Diachek E, Gibson E, Fedorenko E, Futrell R. Grammatical cues to subjecthood are redundant in a majority of simple clauses across languages. Cognition 2023; 241:105543. [PMID: 37713956 DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2023.105543] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/19/2022] [Revised: 06/27/2023] [Accepted: 06/27/2023] [Indexed: 09/17/2023]
Abstract
Grammatical cues are sometimes redundant with word meanings in natural language. For instance, English word order rules constrain the word order of a sentence like "The dog chewed the bone" even though the status of "dog" as subject and "bone" as object can be inferred from world knowledge and plausibility. Quantifying how often this redundancy occurs, and how the level of redundancy varies across typologically diverse languages, can shed light on the function and evolution of grammar. To that end, we performed a behavioral experiment in English and Russian and a cross-linguistic computational analysis measuring the redundancy of grammatical cues in transitive clauses extracted from corpus text. English and Russian speakers (n = 484) were presented with subjects, verbs, and objects (in random order and with morphological markings removed) extracted from naturally occurring sentences and were asked to identify which noun is the subject of the action. Accuracy was high in both languages (∼89% in English, ∼87% in Russian). Next, we trained a neural network machine classifier on a similar task: predicting which nominal in a subject-verb-object triad is the subject. Across 30 languages from eight language families, performance was consistently high: a median accuracy of 87%, comparable to the accuracy observed in the human experiments. The conclusion is that grammatical cues such as word order are necessary to convey subjecthood and objecthood in a minority of naturally occurring transitive clauses; nevertheless, they can (a) provide an important source of redundancy and (b) are crucial for conveying intended meaning that cannot be inferred from the words alone, including descriptions of human interactions, where roles are often reversible (e.g., Ray helped Lu/Lu helped Ray), and expressing non-prototypical meanings (e.g., "The bone chewed the dog.").
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Affiliation(s)
- Kyle Mahowald
- The University of Texas at Austin, Linguistics, USA.
| | | | - Edward Gibson
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Brain and Cognitive Sciences, USA
| | - Evelina Fedorenko
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Brain and Cognitive Sciences, USA; Massachusetts Institute of Technology, McGovern Institute for Brain Research, USA
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Finley S. Morphological cues as an aid to word learning: a cross-situational word learning study. JOURNAL OF COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY 2022. [DOI: 10.1080/20445911.2022.2113087] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/15/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Sara Finley
- Department of Psychology, Pacific Lutheran University, Tacoma, WA, USA
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5
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Redundancy can benefit learning: Evidence from word order and case marking. Cognition 2022; 224:105055. [DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2022.105055] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/25/2021] [Revised: 01/09/2022] [Accepted: 02/01/2022] [Indexed: 11/20/2022]
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Stärk K, Kidd E, Frost RLA. Word Segmentation Cues in German Child-Directed Speech: A Corpus Analysis. LANGUAGE AND SPEECH 2022; 65:3-27. [PMID: 33517856 PMCID: PMC8886305 DOI: 10.1177/0023830920979016] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/30/2023]
Abstract
To acquire language, infants must learn to segment words from running speech. A significant body of experimental research shows that infants use multiple cues to do so; however, little research has comprehensively examined the distribution of such cues in naturalistic speech. We conducted a comprehensive corpus analysis of German child-directed speech (CDS) using data from the Child Language Data Exchange System (CHILDES) database, investigating the availability of word stress, transitional probabilities (TPs), and lexical and sublexical frequencies as potential cues for word segmentation. Seven hours of data (~15,000 words) were coded, representing around an average day of speech to infants. The analysis revealed that for 97% of words, primary stress was carried by the initial syllable, implicating stress as a reliable cue to word onset in German CDS. Word identity was also marked by TPs between syllables, which were higher within than between words, and higher for backwards than forwards transitions. Words followed a Zipfian-like frequency distribution, and over two-thirds of words (78%) were monosyllabic. Of the 50 most frequent words, 82% were function words, which accounted for 47% of word tokens in the entire corpus. Finally, 15% of all utterances comprised single words. These results give rich novel insights into the availability of segmentation cues in German CDS, and support the possibility that infants draw on multiple converging cues to segment their input. The data, which we make openly available to the research community, will help guide future experimental investigations on this topic.
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Affiliation(s)
- Katja Stärk
- Katja Stärk, Language Development
Department, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Wundtlaan 1, 6525 XD
Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
| | - Evan Kidd
- Language Development Department, Max Planck
Institute for Psycholinguistics, The Netherlands
- Research School of Psychology, The Australian
National University, Australia
- ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of
Language, Australia
| | - Rebecca L. A. Frost
- Language Development Department, Max Planck
Institute for Psycholinguistics, The Netherlands
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Cheung RW, Hartley C, Monaghan P. Caregivers use gesture contingently to support word learning. Dev Sci 2021; 24:e13098. [PMID: 33550693 DOI: 10.1111/desc.13098] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/02/2020] [Revised: 11/02/2020] [Accepted: 01/31/2021] [Indexed: 11/27/2022]
Abstract
Children learn words in environments where there is considerable variability, both in terms of the number of possible referents for novel words, and the availability of cues to support word-referent mappings. How caregivers adapt their gestural cues to referential uncertainty has not yet been explored. We tested a computational model of cross-situational word learning that examined the value of a variable gesture cue during training across conditions of varying referential uncertainty. We found that gesture had a greater benefit for referential uncertainty, but unexpectedly also found that learning was best when there was variability in both the environment (number of referents) and gestural cue use. We demonstrated that these results are reflected behaviourally in an experimental word-learning study involving children aged 18-24-month-olds and their caregivers. Under similar conditions to the computational model, caregivers not only used gesture more when there were more potential referents for novel words, but children also learned best when there was some referential ambiguity for words. Thus, caregivers are sensitive to referential uncertainty in the environment and adapt their gestures accordingly, and children are able to respond to environmental variability to learn more robustly. These results imply that training under variable circumstances may actually benefit learning, rather than hinder it.
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Affiliation(s)
| | | | - Padraic Monaghan
- Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK.,University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
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Frost RLA, Dunn K, Christiansen MH, Gómez RL, Monaghan P. Exploring the "anchor word" effect in infants: Segmentation and categorisation of speech with and without high frequency words. PLoS One 2020; 15:e0243436. [PMID: 33332419 PMCID: PMC7746152 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0243436] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/31/2020] [Accepted: 11/23/2020] [Indexed: 12/03/2022] Open
Abstract
High frequency words play a key role in language acquisition, with recent work suggesting they may serve both speech segmentation and lexical categorisation. However, it is not yet known whether infants can detect novel high frequency words in continuous speech, nor whether they can use them to help learning for segmentation and categorisation at the same time. For instance, when hearing "you eat the biscuit", can children use the high-frequency words "you" and "the" to segment out "eat" and "biscuit", and determine their respective lexical categories? We tested this in two experiments. In Experiment 1, we familiarised 12-month-old infants with continuous artificial speech comprising repetitions of target words, which were preceded by high-frequency marker words that distinguished the targets into two distributional categories. In Experiment 2, we repeated the task using the same language but with additional phonological cues to word and category structure. In both studies, we measured learning with head-turn preference tests of segmentation and categorisation, and compared performance against a control group that heard the artificial speech without the marker words (i.e., just the targets). There was no evidence that high frequency words helped either speech segmentation or grammatical categorisation. However, segmentation was seen to improve when the distributional information was supplemented with phonological cues (Experiment 2). In both experiments, exploratory analysis indicated that infants' looking behaviour was related to their linguistic maturity (indexed by infants' vocabulary scores) with infants with high versus low vocabulary scores displaying novelty and familiarity preferences, respectively. We propose that high-frequency words must reach a critical threshold of familiarity before they can be of significant benefit to learning.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Kirsty Dunn
- Lancaster University, Lancaster, United Kingdom
| | | | - Rebecca L. Gómez
- University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, United States of America
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Comparing cross-situational word learning, retention, and generalisation in children with autism and typical development. Cognition 2020; 200:104265. [PMID: 32259659 DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2020.104265] [Citation(s) in RCA: 19] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/15/2019] [Revised: 03/05/2020] [Accepted: 03/06/2020] [Indexed: 01/20/2023]
Abstract
Word learning is complicated by referential ambiguity - there are often multiple potential targets for a newly-heard word. While typically developing (TD) children can accurately infer word meanings from cross-situational statistics, specific difficulties tracking word-object co-occurrences may contribute to language impairments in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Here, we investigate cross-situational word learning as an integrated system including mapping, retention, and generalisation in both typical development and autism. In Study 1, children with ASD were as accurate at disambiguating the meanings of novel words from statistical correspondences as TD controls matched on receptive vocabulary. In Study 2, both populations spontaneously utilised social and non-social attentional cues to facilitate and accelerate their mapping of word-referent relationships. Across Studies 1 and 2, both groups retrieved and generalised word-referent representations with impressive and comparable accuracy. Although children with ASD performed very similarly to TD children on measures of learning accuracy, they were significantly slower to identify correct referents under both cued and non-cued learning conditions. These findings indicate that mechanisms supporting cross-situational word learning, and the relationships between them, are not qualitatively atypical in language-delayed children with ASD. However, the increased time required to generate correct responses suggests that these mechanisms may be less efficient, potentially impacting learning in natural environments where visual and auditory stimuli are presented rapidly. Our data support claims that word learning in the longer term is driven by the gradual accumulation of word-object associations over multiple learning instances and could potentially inform the development of interventions designed to scaffold word learning.
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Frost RLA, Jessop A, Durrant S, Peter MS, Bidgood A, Pine JM, Rowland CF, Monaghan P. Non-adjacent dependency learning in infancy, and its link to language development. Cogn Psychol 2020; 120:101291. [PMID: 32197131 DOI: 10.1016/j.cogpsych.2020.101291] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/30/2019] [Revised: 02/20/2020] [Accepted: 03/05/2020] [Indexed: 11/25/2022]
Abstract
To acquire language, infants must learn how to identify words and linguistic structure in speech. Statistical learning has been suggested to assist both of these tasks. However, infants' capacity to use statistics to discover words and structure together remains unclear. Further, it is not yet known how infants' statistical learning ability relates to their language development. We trained 17-month-old infants on an artificial language comprising non-adjacent dependencies, and examined their looking times on tasks assessing sensitivity to words and structure using an eye-tracked head-turn-preference paradigm. We measured infants' vocabulary size using a Communicative Development Inventory (CDI) concurrently and at 19, 21, 24, 25, 27, and 30 months to relate performance to language development. Infants could segment the words from speech, demonstrated by a significant difference in looking times to words versus part-words. Infants' segmentation performance was significantly related to their vocabulary size (receptive and expressive) both currently, and over time (receptive until 24 months, expressive until 30 months), but was not related to the rate of vocabulary growth. The data also suggest infants may have developed sensitivity to generalised structure, indicating similar statistical learning mechanisms may contribute to the discovery of words and structure in speech, but this was not related to vocabulary size.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Andrew Jessop
- Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Netherlands
| | | | | | | | | | - Caroline F Rowland
- Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Netherlands; University of Liverpool, UK
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Rebuschat P, Monaghan P. Editors' Introduction: Aligning Implicit Learning and Statistical Learning: Two Approaches, One Phenomenon. Top Cogn Sci 2020; 11:459-467. [PMID: 31338981 DOI: 10.1111/tops.12438] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/12/2019] [Revised: 06/14/2019] [Accepted: 06/14/2019] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Abstract
This editors' introduction provides the background to the special issue. We first outline the rationale for bringing together, in a single volume, leading researchers from two distinct, yet related research strands, implicit learning and statistical learning. The aim of the special issue is to facilitate the development of a shared understanding of research questions and methodologies, to provide a platform for discussing similarities and differences between the two strands, and to encourage the formulation of joint research agendas. We then introduce the new contributions solicited for this special issue and provide our perspective on the agenda setting that results from combining these two approaches.
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Affiliation(s)
- Patrick Rebuschat
- Department of Linguistics and English Language, Lancaster University.,LEAD Graduate School and Research Network, University of Tübingen
| | - Padraic Monaghan
- Department of English, University of Amsterdam.,Department of Psychology, Lancaster University
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Understanding Strategy Change: Contextual, Individual, and Metacognitive Factors. ADVANCES IN CHILD DEVELOPMENT AND BEHAVIOR 2019; 56:227-256. [PMID: 30846048 DOI: 10.1016/bs.acdb.2018.11.004] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/21/2022]
Abstract
Learning, development, and response to instruction often involve changes in the strategies that learners use to solve problems. In this chapter, our focus is on mathematical problem solving in both children and adults. We offer a selective review of research on three classes of factors that may influence processes of strategy change in mathematical problem solving: contextual factors, individual factors, and metacognitive factors. Contextual factors involve information that learners encounter in the learning context, such as feedback about prior strategies and examples of alternative strategies. Individual factors involve the abilities, dispositions, and knowledge that learners bring to the learning context. Metacognitive factors involve knowledge about strategies and factors that affect the application of strategies-including perceptions of problem difficulty, confidence in the strategies one already knows, and judgments about the qualities of alternative strategies. These factors operate both independently and in combination to influence learners' behavior. Therefore, we argue that scientific progress in understanding strategy change will require comprehensive conceptual models that specify how different factors come together to explain behavior. We discuss several such models, including vulnerability-trigger models, cumulative risk models, and dynamic systems models. Research guided by such models will contribute to greater progress in understanding processes of strategy use and strategy change.
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