Statistically Induced Chunking Recall: A Memory-Based Approach to Statistical Learning

The computations involved in statistical learning have long been debated. Here, we build on work suggesting that a basic memory process, chunking, may account for the processing of statistical regularities into larger units. Drawing on methods from the memory literature, we developed a novel paradigm to test statistical learning by leveraging a robust phenomenon observed in serial recall tasks: that short-term memory is fundamentally shaped by long-term distributional learning. In the statistically induced chunking recall (SICR) task, participants are exposed to an artificial language, using a standard statistical learning exposure phase. Afterward, they recall strings of syllables that either follow the statistics of the artificial language or comprise the same syllables presented in a random order. We hypothesized that if individuals had chunked the artificial language into word-like units, then the statistically structured items would be more accurately recalled relative to the random controls. Our results demonstrate that SICR effectively captures learning in both the auditory and visual modalities, with participants displaying significantly improved recall of the statistically structured items, and even recall specific trigram chunks from the input. SICR also exhibits greater test–retest reliability in the auditory modality and sensitivity to individual differences in both modalities than the standard two-alternative forced-choice task. These results thereby provide key empirical support to the chunking account of statistical learning and contribute a valuable new tool to the literature.     

Enhanced Verbal Statistical Learning in Glossolalia

Glossolalia (“speaking in tongues”) is a rhythmic utterance of word-like strings of sounds, regularly occurring in religious mass gatherings or various forms of private religious practices (e.g., prayer and meditation). Although specific verbal learning capacities may characterize glossolalists, empirical evidence is lacking. We administered three statistical learning tasks (artificial grammar, phoneme sequence, and visual-response sequence) to 30 glossolalists and 30 matched control volunteers. In artificial grammar, participants decide whether pseudowords and sentences follow previously acquired implicit rules or not. In sequence learning, they gradually draw out rules from repeating regularities in sequences of speech sounds or motor responses. Results revealed enhanced artificial grammar and phoneme sequence learning performances in glossolalists compared to control volunteers. There were significant positive correlations between daily glossolalia activity and artificial grammar learning. These results indicate that glossolalists exhibit enhanced abilities to extract the statistical regularities of verbal information, which may be related to their unusual language abilities.     

Experience With a Linguistic Variant Affects the Acquisition of Its Sociolinguistic Meaning: An Alien-Language-Learning Experiment

How do speakers learn the social meaning of different linguistic variants, and what factors influence how likely a particular social–linguistic association is to be learned? It has been argued that the social meaning of more salient variants should be learned faster, and that learners' pre-existing experience of a variant will influence its salience. In this paper, we report two artificial-language-learning experiments investigating this. Each experiment involved two language-learning stages followed by a test. The first stage introduced the artificial language and trained participants in it, while the second stage added a simple social context using images of cartoon aliens. The first learning stage was intended to establish participants' experience with the artificial language in general and with the distribution of linguistic variants in particular. The second stage, in which linguistic stimuli were accompanied by images of particular aliens, was intended to simulate the acquisition of linguistic variants in a social context. In our first experiment, we manipulated whether a particular linguistic variant, associated with one species of alien in the second learning phase, had been encountered in the first learning phase. In the second experiment, we manipulated whether the variant had been encountered in the same grammatical context. In both cases we predicted that the unexpectedness of a new variant or a new grammatical context for an old variant would increase the variant's salience and facilitate the learning of its social meaning. This is what we found, although in the second experiment, the effect was driven by better learners. Our results suggest that unexpectedness increases the salience of variants and makes their social distribution easier to learn, deepening our understanding of the role of individual language experience in the acquisition of sociolinguistic meaning.     

What Eye Movements Reveal About Later Comprehension of Long Connected Texts

We know that reading involves coordination between textual characteristics and visual attention, but research linking eye movements during reading and comprehension assessed after reading is surprisingly limited, especially for reading long connected texts. We tested two competing possibilities: (a) the weak association hypothesis: Links between eye movements and comprehension are weak and short-lived, versus (b) the strong association hypothesis: The two are robustly linked, even after a delay. Using a predictive modeling approach, we trained regression models to predict comprehension scores from global eye movement features, using participant-level cross-validation to ensure that the models generalize across participants. We used data from three studies in which readers (Ns = 104, 130, 147) answered multiple-choice comprehension questions ~30 min after reading a 6,500-word text, or after reading up to eight 1,000-word texts. The models generated accurate predictions of participants' text comprehension scores (correlations between observed and predicted comprehension: 0.384, 0.362, 0.372, ps < .001), in line with the strong association hypothesis. We found that making more, but shorter fixations, consistently predicted comprehension across all studies. Furthermore, models trained on one study's data could successfully predict comprehension on the others, suggesting generalizability across studies. Collectively, these findings suggest that there is a robust link between eye movements and subsequent comprehension of a long connected text, thereby connecting theories of low-level eye movements with those of higher order text processing during reading.     

记忆的前向测试效应对老年人学习新事物的作用

为检验前置测试是否可以有效地提升老年人学习新事物的能力,参与实验的老年人被随机分为有前置测试的实验组和无前置测试的对照组,在实验1中学习了5列单词,在实验2中记忆了5列日用品,在实验3中学习了4段讲座视频。结果表明,实验组老年人对新事物的记忆成绩均高于对照组的老年人。结论认为,前置测试能够显著提升老年人学习新事物的能力,干扰降低与学习参与相结合的“加减”理论能更好地解释提升老年人记忆的前向测试效应。     

语境线索在留学生阅读伴随词汇学习中的作用：来自眼动的证据

为探讨语境线索在留学生伴随性词汇学习中的作用,本研究选择不同汉语水平的外国留学生作为被试,操纵了语境线索的强弱,使用眼动仪记录被试的词汇学习过程。结果发现：被试在强语境线索下的词汇学习效果显著高于弱语境线索;随着学习次数的增加,强语境线索下目标词注视时间的下降幅度显著大于弱语境线索,高汉语水平被试目标词注视时间的下降幅度显著大于低汉语水平被试。结果表明：无论留学生汉语水平如何,语境线索促进了他们阅读时的伴随性词汇学习,且学习次数越多,语境线索的促进作用越大。     

Preference for the sites of fighting in two teleost species

Males of two species of freshwater fish (convict cichlids and Italian freshwater gobies) fought with conspecifics and subsequently remained near the visual and spatial cues that had been paired with those social encounters. These data show that postfight preference for combat sites is a phenomenon of some generality among teleosts. The likely role of learning in establishing postfight preferences for the locales of aggression is discussed.     

Pre-K attendance and social development: The moderating role of kindergarten classroom experiences

Many studies have established that there are important life-long benefits of attending pre-K. At the same time, recent research suggests that pre-K attenders may enter and exit kindergarten exhibiting less optimal social and learning behaviours than their non-attending peers, and little attention has been paid to what factors may contribute to these patterns of development after children enter kindergarten. The current study will address these gaps in knowledge using nationally representative data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study Kindergarten Class of 2011 to examine the social and learning behaviours of pre-K attenders and nonattenders at kindergarten entry and exit. Moreover, we will determine the extent to which children's social and behavioural skills change at differential rates across the kindergarten year as a function of pre-K attendance and their kindergarten classroom experiences, with a focus on the academic rigour, activity settings and teacher-student relationships.     

Cognitive modifiability as a function of mother–child mediated learning strategies,mothers' acceptance–rejection,and children's personality

This study investigated (a) the effects of mediated learning experience (MLE) in mother–child interactions on cognitive modifiability as measured by dynamic assessment, (b) the effects of mothers' acceptance–rejection towards their children and the children's personality on the mothers' MLE strategies, (c) the combined effects of the mothers' acceptance–rejection, children's personality, and MLE strategies on children's cognitive modifiability, and (d) the prediction of cognitive modifiability by MLE interactions in two distinct conditions: free-play and structured. Fifty-four mother–child dyads (26 boys and 28 girls) in grade 2 were videotaped interacting in two situations: free-play and structured. The interactions were analysed with observation of mediation instrument using five criteria: intentionality and reciprocity, transcendence, meaning, feelings of competence, and regulation of behaviour. The children were administered the parent acceptance–rejection questionnaire, the personality assessment questionnaire, and the children's inferential thinking modifiability test. A distal–proximal factors of cognitive modifiability model was used to explain causal paths among mothers' acceptance–rejection and children's personality (distal) on MLE (proximal), and of both on children's cognitive modifiability. A structural equation model analysis revealed that (a) all MLE criteria were predicted by the distal factors of mothers' acceptance–rejection and children's personality, (b) none of the mothers' attitudes or children's personality factors explained the children's cognitive factors, (c) MLE criteria of transcendence and regulation of behaviour explained the children's CITM-post-teaching score but not the CITM-pre-teaching score. The results are discussed in relation to Feuerstein's MLE theory and Tzuriel's previous results with preschool children. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.