Poepsel Timothy J, Weiss Daniel J
Department of Psychology and Program in Linguistics, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, United States.
Department of Psychology and Program in Linguistics, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, United States.
Cognition. 2016 Jul;152:9-19. doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2016.03.001. Epub 2016 Mar 22.
Statistical learning is a fundamental component of language acquisition, yet to date, relatively few studies have examined whether these abilities differ in bilinguals. In the present study, we examine this issue by comparing English monolinguals with Chinese-English and English-Spanish bilinguals in a cross-situational statistical learning (CSSL) task. In Experiment 1, we assessed the ability of both monolinguals and bilinguals on a basic CSSL task that contained only one-to-one mappings. In Experiment 2, learners were asked to form both one-to-one and two-to-one mappings, and were tested at three points during familiarization. Overall, monolinguals and bilinguals did not differ in their learning of one-to-one mappings. However, bilinguals more quickly acquired two-to-one mappings, while also exhibiting greater proficiency than monolinguals. We conclude that the fundamental SL mechanism may not be affected by language experience, in accord with previous studies. However, when the input contains greater variability, bilinguals may be more prone to detecting the presence of multiple structures.
统计学习是语言习得的一个基本组成部分，但迄今为止，相对较少的研究考察了这些能力在双语者中是否存在差异。在本研究中，我们通过在跨情境统计学习（CSSL）任务中比较英语单语者与中英双语者和英西双语者来研究这个问题。在实验1中，我们在一个仅包含一对一映射的基本CSSL任务中评估了单语者和双语者的能力。在实验2中，要求学习者形成一对一和二对一的映射，并在熟悉过程中的三个时间点进行测试。总体而言，单语者和双语者在一对一映射的学习上没有差异。然而，双语者更快地习得二对一映射，同时也比单语者表现出更高的熟练度。我们得出结论，与之前的研究一致，基本的统计学习机制可能不受语言经验的影响。然而，当输入包含更大的变异性时，双语者可能更容易检测到多种结构的存在。
