Syntactic priming in comprehension: Residual activation or implicit learning (or both)?

Implicit learning of structure occurs in parallel with lexically-mediated syntactic priming effects in sentence comprehension

Journal of Memory and Language ◽

10.1016/j.jml.2017.09.004 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 98 ◽

pp. 59-76 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Kristen M. Tooley ◽

Matthew J. Traxler

Keyword(s):

Implicit Learning ◽

Sentence Comprehension ◽

Syntactic Priming ◽

Priming Effects

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Impaired implicit learning of syntactic structure in children with developmental language disorder: Evidence from syntactic priming

Autism & Developmental Language Impairments ◽

10.1177/2396941518779939 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 3 ◽

pp. 239694151877993 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Maria Garraffa ◽

Moreno I Coco ◽

Holly P Branigan

Keyword(s):

Implicit Learning ◽

Structural Priming ◽

Syntactic Priming ◽

Typically Developing ◽

Learning Disorder ◽

Learning Mechanisms ◽

Typically Developing Children ◽

Developmental Learning ◽

Linguistic Structure ◽

Initial Learning

Background and aims Implicit learning mechanisms associated with detecting structural regularities have been proposed to underlie both the long-term acquisition of linguistic structure and a short-term tendency to repeat linguistic structure across sentences (structural priming) in typically developing children. Recent research has suggested that a deficit in such mechanisms may explain the inconsistent trajectory of language learning displayed by children with Developmental Learning Disorder. We used a structural priming paradigm to investigate whether a group of children with Developmental Learning Disorder showed impaired implicit learning of syntax (syntactic priming) following individual syntactic experiences, and the time course of any such effects. Methods Five- to six-year-old Italian-speaking children with Developmental Learning Disorder and typically developing age-matched and language-matched controls played a picture-description-matching game with an experimenter. The experimenter’s descriptions were systematically manipulated so that children were exposed to both active and passive structures, in a randomized order. We investigated whether children’s descriptions used the same abstract syntax (active or passive) as the experimenter had used on an immediately preceding turn (no-delay) or three turns earlier (delay). We further examined whether children’s syntactic production changed with increasing experience of passives within the experiment. Results Children with Developmental Learning Disorder’s syntactic production was influenced by the syntax of the experimenter’s descriptions in the same way as typically developing language-matched children, but showed a different pattern from typically developing age-matched children. Children with Developmental Learning Disorder were more likely to produce passive syntax immediately after hearing a passive sentence than an active sentence, but this tendency was smaller than in typically developing age-matched children. After two intervening sentences, children with Developmental Learning Disorder no longer showed a significant syntactic priming effect, whereas typically developing age-matched children did. None of the groups showed a significant effect of cumulative syntactic experience. Conclusions Children with Developmental Learning Disorder show a pattern of syntactic priming effects that is consistent with an impairment in implicit learning mechanisms that are associated with the detection and extraction of abstract structural regularities in linguistic input. Results suggest that this impairment involves reduced initial learning from each syntactic experience, rather than atypically rapid decay following intact initial learning. Implications Children with Developmental Learning Disorder may learn less from each linguistic experience than typically developing children, and so require more input to achieve the same learning outcome with respect to syntax. Structural priming is an effective technique for manipulating both input quality and quantity to determine precisely how Developmental Learning Disorder is related to language input, and to investigate how input tailored to take into account the cognitive profile of this population can be optimised in designing interventions.

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Patterns of Implicit Learning Below the Level of Conscious Knowledge

Journal of Psychophysiology ◽

10.1027/0269-8803/a000018 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 24 (2) ◽

pp. 91-101 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Juliana Yordanova ◽

Rolf Verleger ◽

Ullrich Wagner ◽

Vasil Kolev

Keyword(s):

Implicit Learning ◽

Explicit Knowledge ◽

Implicit Knowledge ◽

Knowledge Generation ◽

Sleep Stages ◽

Implicit Processing ◽

Implicit Processes ◽

Late Night ◽

On Line ◽

On Line Learning

The objective of the present study was to evaluate patterns of implicit processing in a task where the acquisition of explicit and implicit knowledge occurs simultaneously. The number reduction task (NRT) was used as having two levels of organization, overt and covert, where the covert level of processing is associated with implicit associative and implicit procedural learning. One aim was to compare these two types of implicit processes in the NRT when sleep was or was not introduced between initial formation of task representations and subsequent NRT processing. To assess the effects of different sleep stages, two sleep groups (early- and late-night groups) were used where initial training of the task was separated from subsequent retest by 3 h full of predominantly slow wave sleep (SWS) or rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. In two no-sleep groups, no interval was introduced between initial and subsequent NRT performance. A second aim was to evaluate the interaction between procedural and associative implicit learning in the NRT. Implicit associative learning was measured by the difference between the speed of responses that could or could not be predicted by the covert abstract regularity of the task. Implicit procedural on-line learning was measured by the practice-based increased speed of performance with time on task. Major results indicated that late-night sleep produced a substantial facilitation of implicit associations without modifying individual ability for explicit knowledge generation or for procedural on-line learning. This was evidenced by the higher rate of subjects who gained implicit knowledge of abstract task structure in the late-night group relative to the early-night and no-sleep groups. Independently of sleep, gain of implicit associative knowledge was accompanied by a relative slowing of responses to unpredictable items suggesting reciprocal interactions between associative and motor procedural processes within the implicit system. These observations provide evidence for the separability and interactions of different patterns of processing within implicit memory.

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