Institute of General Edcation, Sunchon National University, 255 Jungang-ro, Sunchoen-si, Jellanam-do, Korea.
J Psycholinguist Res. 2023 Aug;52(4):1037-1060. doi: 10.1007/s10936-023-09957-0. Epub 2023 Apr 4.
This study investigates whether statistical learning ability, conceptualized as a cognitive ability to learn regularities implicitly, is a good predictor for L2 learners' online language processing performance. Native-English-speaking adults, as a control group, and native-Korean-speaking adult L2 learners of English participated. They completed: (a) an artificial grammar learning task containing nonadjacent dependencies in sequences of non-words, to test statistical learning ability; and (b) a self-paced English reading task containing relative clauses (RC) in which the "filler" and the "gap" formed a long-distance dependency, to test language processing. Both tasks' stimuli were presented element-by-element to mimic the incremental nature of online language processing. The results for the L1 group show that higher accuracy scores on the artificial grammar learning task did not predict higher sentence comprehension scores. The results for the L2 group, however, show a marginally significant correlation between accuracy scores on the artificial grammar learning task and sentence comprehension scores. For both groups, the reading time difference between grammatical and ungrammatical items in the artificial grammar learning task did predict the speed of reading times for items with RCs with a long-distance dependency in the sentence processing task: Larger differences in RTs in the artificial grammar task correlated with slower reading at the critical region of English RCs. These findings suggest a similar mechanism for online first and second language processing of core syntactic phenomena and for statistical learning ability that involves implicitly tracking distributional relations across elements.
本研究旨在探讨统计学习能力（一种隐性学习规律的认知能力）是否是预测二语学习者在线语言处理能力的良好指标。本研究选取了以英语为母语的成年人为对照组，以及以韩语为母语的成年英语学习者作为实验组。他们完成了以下两个任务：（a）一项人工语法学习任务，其中包含非相邻依赖关系的非单词序列，以测试统计学习能力；（b）一项自我调整的英语阅读任务，其中包含关系从句（RC），其中“填充物”和“间隙”形成远距离依赖关系，以测试语言处理能力。两个任务的刺激都以元素为单位呈现，以模拟在线语言处理的增量性质。对于母语组的结果表明，在人工语法学习任务中获得更高的准确性分数并不能预测更高的句子理解分数。然而，对于二语组的结果表明，在人工语法学习任务中准确性分数与句子理解分数之间存在边缘显著的相关性。对于两个组，在人工语法学习任务中语法和非语法项目之间的阅读时间差异可以预测句子处理任务中具有远距离依赖关系的 RC 项目的阅读速度：在人工语法任务中的 RT 差异越大，在英语 RC 的关键区域阅读速度越慢。这些发现表明，核心句法现象的在线第一语言和第二语言处理以及涉及隐性跟踪元素之间分布关系的统计学习能力具有相似的机制。
