School of Psychological Science, University of Bristol, UK.
School of Psychological Science, University of Bristol, UK.
Cognition. 2020 Jan;194:104036. doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2019.104036. Epub 2019 Aug 29.
The ability to rapidly acquire novel cognitive skills is a hallmark of human cognition. Theories of skill acquisition assume that this process is reliant on language, but to date this assertion has not been conclusively supported by empirical evidence. In two experiments participants (total N = 68) were required to learn, by trial-and-error, the correct response to sets of five object stimuli. To investigate the contribution of language to this process, participants performed a verbal (articulatory suppression), a non-verbal (foot tapping), or no distractor task during the first or second half of each task. In both experiments, articulatory suppression resulted in increased error rates (compared to foot tapping), but only during the first (and not the second) half of each task. These results constitute the first convincing evidence for the diminishing role of language in novel task learning and are discussed in relation to theories of skill acquisition.
快速获得新认知技能的能力是人类认知的一个显著特征。技能习得理论假设，这个过程依赖于语言，但迄今为止，这一说法还没有被确凿的经验证据所支持。在两项实验中，参与者（总人数为 68 人）需要通过试错来学习五组物体刺激的正确反应。为了研究语言对这一过程的贡献，参与者在每个任务的前半部分或后半部分进行言语（发音抑制）、非言语（脚踏）或无干扰任务。在两项实验中，发音抑制导致错误率增加（与脚踏相比），但仅在每个任务的前半部分（而非后半部分）。这些结果首次为语言在新任务学习中的作用逐渐减弱提供了令人信服的证据，并结合技能习得理论进行了讨论。
