Wonnacott, Elizabeth, Brown, Helen and Nation, Kate (2017) Skewing the evidence : the effect of input structure on child and adult learning of lexically based patterns in an artificial language. Journal of Memory and Language, 95 . pp. 36-48. ISSN 0749-596X.

Preview	PDF WRAP-skewing-evidence-the-effect-input-structure-Wonnacott-2017.pdf - Published Version - Requires a PDF viewer. Available under License Creative Commons Attribution 4.0. Download (689Kb) | Preview
	PDF WRAP_1171249-ps-270217-wonnacott_brown_nation_jml.pdf - Accepted Version Embargoed item. Restricted access to Repository staff only - Requires a PDF viewer. Download (613Kb)

Request Changes to record.

Abstract

Successful language acquisition requires both generalization and lexically based learning. Previous research suggests that this is achieved, at least in part, by tracking distributional statistics at and above the level of lexical items. We explored this learning using a semi- artificial language learning paradigm with 6-year-olds and adults, looking at learning of co- occurrence relationships between (meaningless) particles and English nouns. Both age groups showed stronger lexical learning (and less generalization) given “skewed” languages where a majority particle co-occurred with most nouns. In addition, adults, but not children, were affected by overall lexicality, showing weaker lexical learning (more generalization) when some input nouns were seen to alternate (i.e. occur with both particles). The results suggest that restricting generalization is affected by distributional statistics above the level of words/bigrams. Findings are discussed within the framework offered by models capturing generalization as rational inference, namely hierarchical-Bayesian and simplicity-based models.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Alternative Title:
Subjects:	B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology P Language and Literature > P Philology. Linguistics
Divisions:	Faculty of Science, Engineering and Medicine > Science > Psychology
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Language acquisition, Psycholinguistics, Languages, Artificial, Linguistics--Statistical methods
Journal or Publication Title:	Journal of Memory and Language
Publisher:	Academic Press
ISSN:	0749-596X
Official Date:	August 2017
Dates:	Date Event August 2017 Published 13 May 2017 Available 27 January 2017 Accepted
Volume:	95
Page Range:	pp. 36-48
Status:	Peer Reviewed
Publication Status:	Published
Access rights to Published version:	Open Access (Creative Commons)
Date of first compliant deposit:	28 February 2017
Date of first compliant Open Access:	2 August 2017
Funder:	Economic and Social Research Council (Great Britain) (ESRC), Experimental Psychology Society (EPS)
Grant number:	ES/F028717/2 (ESRC)

Request changes or add full text files to a record

Repository staff actions (login required)

View Item

Downloads