The Roles of Nonlinguistic Statistical Learning and Memory in Language Skill

Yim, Dongsun; Windsor, Jennifer

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Commun Sci Disord. 2010;15(3): 381-396.

Dongsun Yim^` , and Jennifer Windsor^`

Dongsun Yim(임동선)|Jennifer Windsor(제니퍼 윈저)

ABSTRACT

Background & Objectives
Statistical learning of transitional probabilities is a basic mechanism that may influence language performance. This study investigated whether nonlinguistic statistical learning can predict language performance as well as the role of memory as a potential mediating link between statistical learning and language performance.
Methods
Participants included 20 typically achieving, school-aged children and 20 adults who completed auditory and visual statistical learning tasks and related memory tasks. Participants also completed tasks that assessed acquired language knowledge (grammatical judgment and a standardized language test) and language processing efficiency (rapid naming and non-word repetition).
Results
Nonlinguistic statistical learning ability significantly contributed to language performance, illustrating the general learning mechanism underlying both linguistic and nonlinguistic domains. Statistical learning contributed no significant variance after memory to performance in the language processing tasks. Conversely, statistical learning but not memory performance was a significant predictor of performance in the language knowledge tasks. The results illustrate the important roles of both memory and statistical learning in language performance.
Discussion & Conclusion
The results indicate that statistical learning appears to be more directly associated with language tasks that emphasize complex semantic and grammatical knowledge learned over time rather than language tasks that emphasize access and retrieval of less complex linguistic information. Additionally, statistical learning operates similarly across modalities, and memory is an important component of real time learning. (Korean Journal of Communication Disorders 2010;15;381-396)