Subjects: Linguistics and Applied Linguistics >> Linguistics and Applied Linguistics submitted time 2023-11-01
Abstract： In a typical SL task, participants are first exposed to a nonsensical artificial language for 5~10 mins and then asked to finish a 2 alternative forced choice task (2AFC). Transitional probabilities (TPs), the core concept in SL, represent the predictably between syllables. In a given artificial language, syllables within a target word occur together more frequently, resulting in higher TPs than those of the syllables that span across word boundaries. The latter is referred to as partwords and consist of lower TPs. After the exposure phase, participants enter the test phase and are presented with a partword and target word in each trial of the 2AFC task. If the accuracy across participants is higher than chance level, it is assumed that learning has occurred. However, studies have also shown that factors other than TPs, such as word token frequency, word length variations (or the lack thereof) also impact SL performance in such tasks. To date, these factors as well as their interactive effects remain under studied.
In the experiment one, we aimed to investigate whether TPs affect SL learning performance when controlling for target words’ and partwords’ token frequencies. In doing so, we created the artificial language by randomizing the order of two trisyllabic words and two disyllabic words. During the 2AFC task, three types of items (target word, partword, and nonword) were paired together, with two items in equal length in each trial. There were 24 trials in the test. 40 native Mandarin monolinguals participated in the experiment; they first listened to the artificial language for 5mins and then finished the 2AFC task. In the experiment two, an artificial language was generated with 10 syllables and presented in exposure phase, to examine whether experiment one’s learning effect came from the TP or participants’ prior language bias.
Results in experiment one showed that the accuracy of all trials was significantly higher than chance (0.5) at the group level, suggesting that participants were able to segment the artificial language of mixed word lengths. Participants were also marginally better at choosing target words over partwords, and partwords over nonwords. To investigate the independent effect of TP in SL, we subset the data by word length and found that participants’ accuracy choosing trisyllabic target words over partwords was marginally lower than their choosing disyllabic target words over partword, which suggests that disyllabic words confer advantage in SL for this group of participants. In addition, participants’ accuracy in choosing trisyllabic partwords over nonwords was significantly higher than that of disyllabic target partwords over nonwords. In the experiment two, there were no significant learning effect in any levels when the statistical information was absent.
A series of results across two behavior experiments highlight the unique contribution from TPs alone, since accuracy was assessed by controlling for word token frequency and word length. Thus, the present study suggests that TP exerts effect on verbal SL performance independent of word token frequency. Further studies should take into account more types of statistical rule such as mutual information and backward TP.
Peer Review Status:
Awaiting Review
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》
Abstract： Ample statistical learning (SL) studies have shown that individuals can perform word segmentation by tracking the likelihood of syllable co-occurrences in continuous speech. The classic “exposure-test” paradigm was widely used in this field, in which participants were first exposed to an artificial language and then tested in a forced choice task to assess learning effects. Recently, research has shown that participants' linguistic background, including their phonological and lexical experience, may result in experience-dependent SL. After a systematic review, we also discuss the direction for future SL studies. Specifically, we suggest that for studies involving Mandarin native speakers, researchers should carefully examine the separate and combined effects of various linguistic experience in order to better understand statistical word segmentation.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-27 Cooperative journals: 《心理学报》
Abstract： Statistical Learning (SL) has long been established as a powerful mechanism in language learning and development. Within this framework, transitional probability (TP) of various levels have been shown to confer differing task performance for adults. Recent studies have also highlighted the role of linguistic experience in the process of SL. However, it remains unclear whether different word lengths as well as varying levels of TPs may impact the segmentation of continuous speech. In the low TP condition, the superior outcome of disyllabic contrasts might stem from the Mandarin speakers' prior linguistic experience—their expectation that words should be of two syllables. For the trisyllabic contrasts, lower TPs may provide relatively weakened statistical regularities for tracking word boundaries, which may in turn lead to difficulty extracting words. Importantly, our findings show that when both factors present difficulties (e.g., trisyllabic contrasts in the low TP condition), such that the word length violates the listeners' expectation and the TPs do not provide high levels of consistency, word segmentation can no longer be supported. The current study showed for the first time that when combining TP and word length in the speech material, these two factors impact word segmentation in a complex manner. This study offers new insight for future SL designs as well as potentially informative directions in exploring how individual differences based on linguistic backgrounds may manifest itself in word segmentation tasks. Sixty native Mandarin monolinguals participated in a word segmentation task. An artificial language was designed with the same flat tone paired with 13 syllables, resulting in two disyllabic and three trisyllabic monotonic words. While only the segmental tier offered reliable information to segmentation, information from the suprasegmental level ensured that each word was phonologically legal in Mandarin. The words were then combined into two conditions of a monotonic artificial language: for the hTP language, all TPs within words were 1.0; whereas they were 0.6 in the lTP condition. Two types of nonwords (trisyllabic and disyllabic) were created for the test phase, then paired with target words of equal length in each trial. Adults were first exposed to the monotonic artificial language and then tested in a 2 alternative forced-choice task (2AFC) to decide whether a word or a nonword sounded more familiar. The mixed two-way ANOVA with word length (disyllables vs. trisyllables) as a within-subject factor and TP (high TP vs. low TP) as a between-subjects factor yielded nonsignificant effects for either word length or TP levels. There was also no significant interaction. A series of one-sample t-tests were conducted between the participants' average accuracy and chance level (.5). Participants preferred words over nonwords in most conditions except for trisyllabic contrasts in the low TP condition. Additional planned contrasts among the conditions revealed that when the TPs were low, participants performed significantly better in the disyllabic condition than in the trisyllabic condition; under the trisyllabic condition, high TP yielded better performance than low TP.
Subjects: Psychology >> Cognitive Psychology submitted time 2020-12-17
Abstract： " " " "
Peer Review Status:Awaiting Review
Subjects: Psychology >> Cognitive Psychology submitted time 2020-10-27
Abstract： Ample statistical learning (SL) studies have shown that individuals can perform word segmentation by tracking the likelihood of syllable co-occurrences in continuous speech. The classic “exposure-test” paradigm was widely used in this field, in which participants were first exposed to an artificial language and then tested in a forced choice task to assess learning effects. Recently, research has shown that participants’ linguistic background, including their phonological and lexical experience, may result in experience-dependent SL. After a systematic review, we also discuss the direction for future SL studies. Specifically, we suggest that for studies involving Mandarin native speakers, researchers should carefully examine the separate and combined effects of various linguistic experience in order to better understand statistical word segmentation.
Peer Review Status:Awaiting Review
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