Learning phonotactic-like regularities in immediate serial recall. 2021

Simon Fischer-Baum, and Jill A Warker, and Charli Holloway
Department of Psychological Sciences, Rice University.

Learning a spoken language requires learning a phonological inventory and phonotactics, or the sequences of phonemes possible in the language. Laboratory investigations of phonotactic learning include tongue-twister studies that show that speech errors respect artificial phonotactic constraints, for example that /k/ never appears as a syllable onset. The current research investigates whether errors can reveal similar learning in nonlinguistic domains, specifically in immediate serial recall studies. In Experiments 1-3 participants recalled sequences of 6 items, grouped into two 3-item subsequences, in verbal immediate serial recall experiments. Some items were restricted to appear in specific sequence positions while others were unrestricted, as a parallel to the artificial phonotactics learning experiments. As with speech errors, recall errors with restricted items showed sensitivity to the statistical regularities built into the experiment. Similar results are shown for both absolute and probabilistic constraints. However, learning effects were weaker than in the phonological domain, and were less influenced by hierarchical structure than what is observed in phonotactic learning (Experiment 4). Taken together, these results suggest that there are both domain-general and language-specific constraints on phonotactic learning. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

UI MeSH Term Description Entries
D008570 Memory, Short-Term Remembrance of information for a few seconds to hours. Immediate Recall,Memory, Immediate,Working Memory,Memory, Shortterm,Immediate Memories,Immediate Memory,Immediate Recalls,Memories, Immediate,Memories, Short-Term,Memories, Shortterm,Memory, Short Term,Recall, Immediate,Recalls, Immediate,Short-Term Memories,Short-Term Memory,Shortterm Memories,Shortterm Memory,Working Memories
D010700 Phonetics The science or study of speech sounds and their production, transmission, and reception, and their analysis, classification, and transcription. (Random House Unabridged Dictionary, 2d ed) Speech Sounds,Sound, Speech,Sounds, Speech,Speech Sound
D011939 Mental Recall The process whereby a representation of past experience is elicited. Recall, Mental
D006801 Humans Members of the species Homo sapiens. Homo sapiens,Man (Taxonomy),Human,Man, Modern,Modern Man
D012691 Serial Learning Learning to make a series of responses in exact order. Learning, Serial,Learnings, Serial,Serial Learnings
D013060 Speech Communication through a system of conventional vocal symbols. Public Speaking,Speaking, Public
D014706 Verbal Learning Learning to respond verbally to a verbal stimulus cue. Learning, Verbal,Learnings, Verbal,Verbal Learnings

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