School of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Elborn College, Western University, London, Ontario N6G 1H1, Canada.
Mem Cognit. 2013 Feb;41(2):268-80. doi: 10.3758/s13421-012-0259-4.
The relative influences of language-related and memory-related constraints on the learning of novel words and sequences were examined by comparing individual differences in performance of children with and without specific deficits in either language or working memory. Children recalled lists of words in a Hebbian learning protocol in which occasional lists repeated, yielding improved recall over the course of the task on the repeated lists. The task involved presentation of pictures of common nouns followed immediately by equivalent presentations of the spoken names. The same participants also completed a paired-associate learning task involving word-picture and nonword-picture pairs. Hebbian learning was observed for all groups. Domain-general working memory constrained immediate recall, whereas language abilities impacted recall in the auditory modality only. In addition, working memory constrained paired-associate learning generally, whereas language abilities disproportionately impacted novel word learning. Overall, all of the learning tasks were highly correlated with domain-general working memory. The learning of nonwords was additionally related to general intelligence, phonological short-term memory, language abilities, and implicit learning. The results suggest that distinct associations between language- and memory-related mechanisms support learning of familiar and unfamiliar phonological forms and sequences.
通过比较语言或工作记忆有特定缺陷的儿童和无特定缺陷的儿童在表现上的个体差异，考察了语言相关和记忆相关约束对学习新单词和序列的相对影响。儿童在赫布学习协议中回忆单词列表，在该协议中，偶尔会重复列表，从而在任务过程中提高重复列表的回忆能力。任务涉及呈现常见名词的图片，随后立即呈现相应的口语名称。同一组参与者还完成了涉及单词-图片和非单词-图片对的配对联想学习任务。所有组都观察到了赫布学习。一般工作记忆限制了即时回忆，而语言能力仅影响听觉模式下的回忆。此外，工作记忆普遍限制了配对联想学习，而语言能力不成比例地影响了新词学习。总的来说，所有学习任务都与一般工作记忆高度相关。非词的学习还与一般智力、语音短期记忆、语言能力和内隐学习有关。结果表明，语言和记忆相关机制之间的不同联系支持熟悉和不熟悉的语音形式和序列的学习。
