Infant statistical-learning ability is related to real-time language processing

Abstract

Infants are adept at learning statistical regularities in artificial language materials, suggesting that the ability to learn statistical structure may support language development. Indeed, infants who perform better on statistical learning tasks tend to be more advanced in parental reports of infants' language skills. Work with adults suggests that one way statistical learning ability affects language proficiency is by facilitating real-time language processing. Here we tested whether 15-month-olds' ability to learn sequential statistical structure in artificial language materials is related to their ability to encode and interpret native-language speech. Specifically, we tested their ability to learn sequential structure among syllables (Experiment 1) and words (Experiment 2), as well as their ability to encode familiar English words in sentences. The results suggest that infants' ability to learn sequential structure among syllables is related to their lexical-processing efficiency, providing continuity with findings from children and adults, though effects were modest.

Infants’ statistical word segmentation in an artificial language is linked to both parental speech input and reported production abilities

“…Hence, in the present work, we focus on the link between speech input and infants' ability to use statistical co-occurrences as cues to segmentation. Although some limitations have been identified (Johnson & Tyler, 2010;Mersad & Nazzi, 2012), several studies now show that infants' learning of word meanings is easier for word forms with high internal TPs (Graf Estes, 2012;Graf Estes, Evans, Alibali, & Saffran, 2007), that infants who are better able to identify speech structures with high internal TPs are also faster to recognize familiar words (Lany, Shoaib, Thompson, & Graf Estes, 2018), and that infant statistical learning as measured in visual tasks are linked to individual differences in concurrent (Shafto, Conway, Field, & Houston, 2012) and later language abilities (Ellis, Gonzalez, & Deák, 2014). Statistical approaches to word segmentation have mostly focused on TPs between syllables, which could be a cue to segmentation since syllables co-occur more consistently within words than between words (Curtin, Mintz, & Christiansen, 2005).…”

“…Moreover, infants seem to track TPs between syllables in both synthesized and naturally produced speech (e.g., Aslin, Saffran, & Newport, 1998;Pelucchi, Hay, & Saffran, 2009;Saffran, Aslin, & Newport, 1996), suggesting that TP computation is a useful learning mechanism for word segmentation outside the laboratory, which also interacts with other cues to segmentation (Erickson & Thiessen, 2015;Johnson & Jusczyk, 2001;Mersad & Nazzi, 2012). Although some limitations have been identified (Johnson & Tyler, 2010;Mersad & Nazzi, 2012), several studies now show that infants' learning of word meanings is easier for word forms with high internal TPs (Graf Estes, 2012;Graf Estes, Evans, Alibali, & Saffran, 2007), that infants who are better able to identify speech structures with high internal TPs are also faster to recognize familiar words (Lany, Shoaib, Thompson, & Graf Estes, 2018), and that infant statistical learning as measured in visual tasks are linked to individual differences in concurrent (Shafto, Conway, Field, & Houston, 2012) and later language abilities (Ellis, Gonzalez, & Deák, 2014).…”

Infants’ Lexical Processing Efficiency is Related to Vocabulary Size by One Year of Age

“…Recent work suggests that infants' ability to use statistical regularities (e.g., transitional probabilities between syllables) to segment fluent speech is related to their LPE by 15 months (Lany, Shoaib, Thompson, & Estes, 2017). Recent work suggests that infants' ability to use statistical regularities (e.g., transitional probabilities between syllables) to segment fluent speech is related to their LPE by 15 months (Lany, Shoaib, Thompson, & Estes, 2017).…”

Statistical learning abilities and their relation to language

“…Individual‐differences studies from recent years confirm this prediction, suggesting that individual SL performance in fact predicts variability in linguistic outcomes. In this vein, individual differences in SL performance among both children and adults were shown to correlate with abilities such as syntactic processing (Kidd, ; Kidd & Arciuli, ; Misyak, Christiansen, & Tomblin, ), lexical knowledge and vocabulary size (Mainela‐Arnold & Evans, ; Shafto, Conway, Field, & Houston, ; Singh, Steven Reznick, & Xuehua, ; Spencer, Kaschak, Jones, & Lonigan, ), speech perception (Conway et al, ; Conway, Karpicke, & Pisoni, ; Lany, Shoaib, Thompson, & Estes, ), and literacy acquisition in first language (Arciuli & Simpson, ; Tong, Leung, & Tong, ; Torkildsen, Arciuli, & Wie, ) as well as second language (Frost, Siegelman, Narkiss, & Afek, ; A. Yu et al, ; see Arciuli, for a review). More direct evidence comes from a handful of longitudinal studies.…”