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Neuro-behavioral Correlates of Statistical Learning in English Second Language Comprehension: The Specificity of Statistical Learning Modality
Poster Session C, Saturday, September 13, 11:00 am - 12:30 pm, Field House
Bo Bao1, Yanzi Zhang1, Haoru Wang1, You Li1, Guiping Xu1; 1JINAN UNIVERSITY
Improving listening comprehension is a primary concern for many Chinese English second language (ESL) learners, whose listening skills often lag behind their reading comprehension. An individual's implicit statistical learning (SL) ability is considered a crucial mechanism for both L1 and L2 acquisition (Frost et al., 2013; Ren & Wang, 2024; Saffran et al., 1996), which helps to explore the possible mechanism underlying this listening-reading gap in Chinese ESL learners. Recently, the neural indices of online auditory statistical learning (ASL), specifically inter-trial phase coherence (ITPC) in the delta band at chunk-rate (1.1 Hz) and item-rate (3.3 Hz) (Batterink & Paller, 2017), were shown to significantly correlate with L1 phonological awareness (Zhang et al., 2021). However, the relationship between the neurocognitive mechanisms of SL and ESL comprehension, particularly listening comprehension, remains underexplored. Furthermore, it is unclear whether the modality of SL (auditory vs. visual) moderates the relationship between SL abilities and specific language skills. This study investigated the correlations between SL and English L2 comprehension in Chinese native speakers, examining the possible moderating effect of SL modality (Study 1), and explored the specific neurophysiological correlates of auditory SL and visual SL (Study 2). In Study 1, 38 Chinese ESL learners completed cognitive assessments including working memory, rapid automatized naming (RAN), visual perceptual skills (TVPS-4), and auditory/visual SL tasks. Their College English Test Band 4 (CET-4) listening and reading scores served as indices of ESL comprehension. The results indicated that listening scores, which showed greater variability, were significantly lower than that of reading and had a stronger association with total CET-4 scores than reading scores. VSL was significantly positively correlated only with CET-4 reading scores, whereas ASL was significantly positively correlated with both CET-4 listening and total scores. After controlling for other cognitive factors, ASL and VSL made unique contributions to English L2 listening and reading, respectively. Study 2 further collected EEG signals during auditory and visual SL tasks from 27 Chinese ESL learners. The results revealed distinct correlation patterns between the ITPCs derived from ASL and VSL tasks and both ESL performance and behavioral SL measures. In summary, our findings indicate the importance of SL for ESL comprehension and suggest modality specificity, potentially informing approaches to narrow the listening-reading gap and enhance learning effectiveness. Moreover, the results support the domain specificity of SL (Frost et al., 2015), highlighting the necessity of examining SL across different modalities when investigating individual differences in the relationship between SL and second language learning among diverse second language learners.
Topic Areas: Language Development/Acquisition,