Department of Psychology, University of Western Ontario, London, Canada.
Dev Sci. 2024 Jul;27(4):e13498. doi: 10.1111/desc.13498. Epub 2024 Mar 22.
Children achieve better long-term language outcomes than adults. However, it remains unclear whether children actually learn language more quickly than adults during real-time exposure to input-indicative of true superior language learning abilities-or whether this advantage stems from other factors. To examine this issue, we compared the rate at which children (8-10 years) and adults extracted a novel, hidden linguistic rule, in which novel articles probabilistically predicted the animacy of associated nouns (e.g., "gi lion"). Participants categorized these two-word phrases according to a second, explicitly instructed rule over two sessions, separated by an overnight delay. Both children and adults successfully learned the hidden animacy rule through mere exposure to the phrases, showing slower response times and decreased accuracy to occasional phrases that violated the rule. Critically, sensitivity to the hidden rule emerged much more quickly in children than adults; children showed a processing cost for violation trials from very early on in learning, whereas adults did not show reliable sensitivity to the rule until the second session. Children also showed superior generalization of the hidden animacy rule when asked to classify nonword trials (e.g., "gi badupi") according to the hidden animacy rule. Children and adults showed similar retention of the hidden rule over the delay period. These results provide insight into the nature of the critical period for language, suggesting that children have a true advantage over adults in the rate of implicit language learning. Relative to adults, children more rapidly extract hidden linguistic structures during real-time language exposure. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: Children and adults both succeeded in implicitly learning a novel, uninstructed linguistic rule, based solely on exposure to input. Children learned the novel linguistic rules much more quickly than adults. Children showed better generalization performance than adults when asked to apply the novel rule to nonsense words without semantic content. Results provide insight into the nature of critical period effects in language, indicating that children have an advantage over adults in real-time language learning.
儿童比成人在长期语言方面取得更好的结果。然而，目前尚不清楚儿童在实时输入中是否真的比成人更快地学习语言——这表明他们具有真正优越的语言学习能力——或者这种优势是否源于其他因素。为了检验这个问题，我们比较了儿童（8-10 岁）和成人提取一个新的、隐藏的语言规则的速度，该规则中，新的冠词以概率预测相关名词的生物性（例如，“狮子”）。参与者在两个会话之间通过两个阶段，根据第二个明确指示的规则对这些两个词的短语进行分类，两个阶段之间有一个隔夜延迟。儿童和成人都通过仅仅接触短语成功地学习了隐藏的生物性规则，对偶尔违反规则的短语反应时间较慢且准确性降低。关键的是，儿童对隐藏规则的敏感性比成人更快地出现；儿童在学习的早期阶段就对违反规则的试验表现出处理成本，而成人直到第二个阶段才表现出对规则的可靠敏感性。当要求儿童根据隐藏的生物性规则对非词试验（例如，“狮子”）进行分类时，他们还表现出对隐藏的生物性规则的优越概括。儿童和成人在延迟期间对隐藏规则的保留情况相似。这些结果提供了对语言关键期性质的深入了解，表明儿童在隐性语言学习的速度上具有真正的优势。与成人相比，儿童在实时语言接触过程中更迅速地提取隐藏的语言结构。研究亮点：儿童和成人都成功地通过仅接触输入来隐含地学习新的、未指导的语言规则。儿童比成人更快地学习新的语言规则。当要求他们将新规则应用于无语义内容的无意义单词时，儿童的泛化表现优于成人。结果提供了对语言关键期效应性质的深入了解，表明儿童在实时语言学习方面具有成人优势。
