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The Salience of function words in implicit statistical linguistic learning: An ERP investigation
Poster Session E, Sunday, September 14, 11:00 am - 12:30 pm, Field House
Daniel M. Schwartz1, Ecem Kopuz1, Katarina Antolovic1, Ebony Goldman1, Valerie L. Shafer1; 1CUNY Graduate Center
Research has indicated that children and adults can implicitly learn language patterns; however, questions still remain regarding the role and nature of implicit learning, particularly of sequential patterns. Implicit statistical learning is a type of unconscious learning of sequential patterns, which may be especially relevant to phrase structure learning. Prior studies have highlighted the differential processing of function words (FWs) like determiners relative to content and nonsense words and have also pointed to particular neural response patterns (specifically, Anterior Negativity, or AN) to early syntactic violations. To date, there is relatively little work directly investigating the role of FWs in implicit statistical learning of linguistic patterns. The present study used electrophysiological measures to test adults’ ability to implicitly learn grammatical patterns. We hypothesized that: 1) adults would demonstrate implicit learning of the linguistic patterns; 2) grammatical violations would elicit an Anterior Negativity (AN) response, and 3) the inclusion of real FWs would elicit a more robust neural response, particularly for native English listeners. Method: Participants included eight native English-dominant (ED) and eight native Turkish adults, all between the ages of 18 and 35 years. In two experiments, Event-Related Potentials (ERPs) were recorded from 17 electrode sites while participants watched a muted movie while listening to auditory stimuli. The stimuli were designed to be analogous to elements of English Noun Phrases (NPs). Both experiments included nonsense word forms (e.g., /ua/, /ia/ /ea/). In Experiment 1 (Exp1), two of these nonsense forms were placed in the initial noun phrase position. In Experiment 2 (Exp2), two of the six stimuli were real English FWs, “the” and “an”. Experiments were separated into two blocks; during the first block (B1) of each experiment, the six stimuli were presented in a pattern mimicking the phrase structure Determiner (Adjective)(Adjective)Noun for 16 possible combinations (“sentences”), each presented 13 times in a block. During the second block (B2) 20% of these sentences were reversed, violating the learned pattern. Results: Increased left-hemisphere AN responses were observed following grammatical violations in both experiments, which interacted with time and hemisphere. However, the two language groups showed different patterns. In Exp 1, for both groups, the early AN (100-200 ms) to the violation was bilateral, but left lateralized in a later time window 300 and 500 ms. In addition, the later response was larger for the Turkish listeners. For Exp2, the native English group showing an early AN to the violation, whereas the native Turkish listeners only showed the later left AN (300-500 ms). Discussion: We interpret these patterns to index implicit learning of the statistical patterns, and that the English FWs facilitated implicit learning for the native English listeners. The larger response in the late time interval for the Turkish learners may be due to second language (L2) experience with English. Future plans are to double the sample size (as intended), and to examine listeners from other languages backgrounds who have varying amount or L2 experience.
Topic Areas: Syntax and Combinatorial Semantics,