On-Line Individual Differences in Statistical Learning Predict Language Processing

Considerable individual differences in language ability exist among normally developing children and adults. Whereas past research have attributed such differences to variations in verbal working memory or experience with language, we test the hypothesis that individual differences in statistical learning may be associated with differential language performance. We employ a novel paradigm for studying statistical learning on-line, combining a serial-reaction time task with artificial grammar learning. This task offers insights into both the timecourse of and individual differences in statistical learning. Experiment 1 charts the micro-level trajectory for statistical learning of nonadjacent dependencies and provides an on-line index of individual differences therein. In Experiment 2, these differences are then shown to predict variations in participants’ on-line processing of long-distance dependencies involving center-embedded relative clauses. The findings suggest that individual differences in the ability to learn from experience through statistical learning may contribute to variations in linguistic performance.

• Publication year

  2010

• Venue

  Front. Psychology

• Publication date

  2010-05-03

• Fields of study

  Computer Science, Linguistics, Medicine, Psychology

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.3389/fpsyg.2010.00031PMID 21833201PMCID 3153750
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

• Statistical Learning and Language: An Individual Differences Study

  2012cited by this paper
• Category induction via distributional analysis: Evidence from a serial reaction time task.

  2010cited by this paper
• Implicit statistical learning in language processing: word predictability is the key.

  2010cited by this paper
• Sequential Expectations: The Role of Prediction-Based Learning in Language

  2010cited by this paper
• Experience and sentence processing: statistical learning and relative clause comprehension.

  2009influential reference
• Learning at a Distance :

  2009cited by this paper
• Statistical learning of adjacent and nonadjacent dependencies among nonlinguistic sounds

  2009cited by this paper
• Implicit learning of predictive relationships in three-element visual sequences by young and old adults.

  2008cited by this paper
• Implicit Learning of Second-, Third-, and Fourth-Order Adjacent and Nonadjacent Sequential Dependencies

  2008influential reference
• Segmenting dynamic human action via statistical structure.

  2008cited by this paper
• Twelve-Month-Old Infants Benefit From Prior Experience in Statistical Learning

  2008cited by this paper
• An attention-based associative account of adjacent and nonadjacent dependency learning.

  2008cited by this paper
• Processing of relative clauses is made easier by frequency of occurrence

  2007cited by this paper
• Procedural Learning in Adolescents With and Without Specific Language Impairment

  2007cited by this paper
• Individual differences in working memory capacity and learning: Evidence from the serial reaction time task

  2005cited by this paper
• Learning at a distance I. Statistical learning of non-adjacent dependencies.

  2004cited by this paper
• Artificial syntactic violations activate Broca's region

  2004cited by this paper
• Attention and Structure in Sequence Learning

  2004influential reference
• Distant melodies: statistical learning of nonadjacent dependencies in tone sequences.

  2004cited by this paper
• Reduction of uncertainty in human sequential learning: Evidence from artificial grammar learning

  2003influential reference
• Variability and Detection of Invariant Structure

  2002influential reference
• Statistical learning of higher-order temporal structure from visual shape sequences.

  2002influential reference
• From the Cover: Statistical learning of new visual feature combinations by infants

  2002cited by this paper
• Visual statistical learning in infancy: evidence for a domain general learning mechanism.

  2002cited by this paper
• Reassessing working memory: comment on Just and Carpenter (1992) and Waters and Caplan (1996).

  2002influential reference
• Constraints on Statistical Language Learning

  2002cited by this paper
• Can sequence learning be implicit? New evidence with the process dissociation procedure

  2001influential reference
• Serial reaction time learning in preschool- and school-age children.

  2001cited by this paper
• Statistical learning in a serial reaction time task: access to separable statistical cues by individual learners.

  2001cited by this paper
• Infant artificial language learning and language acquisition.

  2000influential reference
• Implicit learning: news from the front.

  1998influential reference
• The capacity theory of sentence comprehension: critique of Just and Carpenter (1992)

  1996cited by this paper
• WORD SEGMENTATION : THE ROLE OF DISTRIBUTIONAL CUES

  1996cited by this paper
• Statistical Learning by 8-Month-Old Infants

  1996influential reference
• INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES AND THEIR IMPLICATIONS FOR THEORIES OF LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT

  1995influential reference
• Implicit learning of a nonverbal sequence in younger and older adults.

  1995cited by this paper
• Correlational analyses of procedural and declarative learning performance

  1995cited by this paper
• IMPLICIT LEARNING AND TACIT KNOWLEDGE - AN ESSAY ON THE COGNITIVE UNCONSCIOUS - REBER,A

  1995cited by this paper
• A capacity theory of comprehension: individual differences in working memory.

  1992influential reference
• Individual differences in syntactic processing: The role of working memory

  1991influential reference
• Learning the structure of event sequences.

  1991cited by this paper
• On the development of procedural knowledge.

  1989influential reference
• Attentional requirements of learning: Evidence from performance measures ☆

  1987cited by this paper
• THE DEVELOPMENT

  1986cited by this paper
• Automatic processing of fundamental information: the case of frequency of occurrence.

  1984influential reference
• Paradigms and processes in reading comprehension.

  1982cited by this paper
• Implicit learning of artificial grammars

  1967cited by this paper
• Address correspondence to: Comparing Direct and Indirect Measures of Sequence Learning

  year unknowncited by this paper

• Learning through prediction: a case of verb bias learning

  2026cites this paper
• Rethinking Probabilistic Sensorimotor Sequence Learning: Focus on probabilistic systems instead of simple patterns.

  2025cites this paper
• Eye-tracking evidence for benefits from linguistically-driven text formatting while reading

  2025cites this paper
• Linguistic Rule Generalisation Creates the Same Distributional Structure That Feeds It

  2025cites this paper
• Neural evidence for linguistic statistical learning is independent of rhythmic and cognitive abilities in neurotypical adults.

  2025cites this paper
• Artificial visual learning of educational concepts in dyslexia: A meta-analytic review

  2025cites this paper
• Addressing the theory crisis in statistical learning research

  2025cites this paper
• Selection shapes diverse animal minds

  2025cites this paper
• Statistical learning subserves a higher purpose: Novelty detection in an information foraging system.

  2025cites this paper
• Capturing individual differences in sentence processing: How reliable is the self-paced reading task?

  2024cites this paper
• Rapid learning of temporal dependencies at multiple timescales

  2024cites this paper
• Assessing serial recall as a measure of artificial grammar learning

  2024cites this paper
• Implicit Statistical Learning of Brazilian Children With Developmental Dyslexia.

  2024cites this paper
• Chunk Duration Limits the Learning of Multiword Chunks: Behavioral and Electroencephalography Evidence from Statistical Learning

  2024cites this paper
• Assessing processing-based measures of implicit statistical learning: Three serial reaction time experiments do not reveal artificial grammar learning

  2024cites this paper
• Rapid Learning of Temporal Dependencies at Multiple Timescales

  2024cites this paper
• Limited but specific engagement of the mature language network during linguistic statistical learning.

  2024cites this paper
• Reduced Implicit but not Explicit Knowledge of Cross-Situational Statistical Learning in Developmental Dyslexia

  2023cites this paper
• Linguistic and attentional factors – Not statistical regularities – Contribute to word-selective neural responses with FPVS-oddball paradigms

  2023cites this paper
• Afazili Bireylerde Dil Becerileri ve İstatistiki Öğrenme Becerisi Arasındaki İlişkinin İncelenmesi

  2023cites this paper
• Statistical word segmentation succeeds given the minimal amount of exposure

  2023cites this paper
• A survey on emotion–cause extraction in psychological text using deep learning methods

  2023cites this paper
• Implicit learning and individual differences in speech recognition: an exploratory study

  2023cites this paper
• The association between statistical learning and the development of second language grammar learning

  2023cites this paper
• Non-adjacent dependency learning from variable input: investigating the effects of bilingualism, phonological memory, and cognitive control

  2023cites this paper
• Sound-Category Learning and Memory Skills in Neurotypical Adults and Adults with Language-Learning Disabilities

  2023cites this paper
• Implicit Statistical Learning in L2 Sentence Processing: Individual Cognitive Differences

  2023influential citation
• Language in autism: domains, profiles and co-occurring conditions

  2023cites this paper
• Implicit cross-situational word learning in children with and without developmental language disorder and its relation to lexical-semantic knowledge

  2023cites this paper
• Reliability of individual differences in distractor suppression driven by statistical learning

  2023cites this paper
• Inter-individual differences in Hindi–English code-switching: A quantitative approach

  2022cites this paper
• Effect of Family Socioeconomic Status on Brain Structures Involved in Statistical Learning in Children

  2022cites this paper
• The interface issue in second language acquisition research: An interdisciplinary perspective

  2022cites this paper
• Detecting non-adjacent dependencies is the exception rather than the rule

  2022cites this paper
• When exceptions matter: bilinguals regulate their dominant language to exploit structural constraints in sentence production

  2022cites this paper
• Implicit Statistical Learning in Naturalistic and Instructed Morphosyntactic Attainment: An Aptitude‐Treatment Interaction Design

  2021cites this paper
• Language statistical learning responds to reinforcement learning principles rooted in the striatum

  2021cites this paper
• Access to Procedural Memories After One Year: Evidence for Robust Memory Consolidation in Tourette Syndrome

  2021cites this paper
• Statistical learning and its consolidation in persons with aphasia

  2021cites this paper
• Regularity detection under stress: Faster extraction of probability-based regularities

  2021cites this paper
• Statistical and sequence learning lead to persistent memory in children after a one-year offline period

  2021cites this paper
• Assessing the Sensitivity of EEG-Based Frequency-Tagging as a Metric for Statistical Learning

  2021cites this paper
• Grammatical performance in children with dyslexia: the contributions of individual differences in phonological memory and statistical learning

  2021cites this paper
• Hierarchical syntactic processing is beyond mere associating: Functional magnetic resonance imaging evidence from a novel artificial grammar

  2021cites this paper
• Dissociation between two aspects of procedural learning in Tourette syndrome: Enhanced statistical and impaired sequence learning

  2021cites this paper
• Phonetic Effects in Child and Adult Word Segmentation.

  2021cites this paper
• Statistical learning as reinforcement learning phenomena

  2021cites this paper
• How statistical learning interacts with the socioeconomic environment to shape children’s language development

  2021cites this paper
• Statistically Induced Chunking Recall: A Memory-Based Approach to Statistical Learning

  2020cites this paper
• Tuning in to non-adjacencies: Exposure to learnable patterns supports discovering otherwise difficult structures.

  2020cites this paper
• Exploring the Neurocognitive Bases of Statistical Learning

  2020cites this paper
• The contribution of statistical learning to language and literacy acquisition

  2020cites this paper
• Regularity extraction under stress: boosted statistical learning but unaffected sequence learning

  2020cites this paper
• Disentangling sequential from hierarchical learning in Artificial Grammar Learning: Evidence from a modified Simon Task

  2020cites this paper
• Feature-focusing constraints on implicit learning of function word and meaning associations

  2020cites this paper
• Statistical learning abilities and their relation to language

  2020cites this paper
• Statistical learning mechanisms in infancy

  2020cites this paper
• Statistical Learning and Language Impairments: Toward More Precise Theoretical Accounts

  2020cites this paper
• Children With Developmental Language Disorder Have an Auditory Verbal Statistical Learning Deficit: Evidence From an Online Measure

  2020influential citation
• The cognitive and neural mechanisms of statistical learning and its relationship with language

  2020cites this paper
• Statistical Learning in the Visuomotor Domain and Its Relation to Grammatical Proficiency in Children with and without Developmental Language Disorder: A Conceptual Replication and Meta-Analysis

  2020cites this paper
• Mini Pinyin: A modified miniature language for studying language learning and incremental sentence processing

  2020cites this paper
• Explicit but Not Implicit Memory Predicts Ultimate Attainment in the Native Language

  2020cites this paper
• How the Demands of a Variable Environment Give Rise to Statistical Learning

  2020cites this paper
• UvA-DARE Children With Developmental Language Disorder Have an Auditory Verbal Statistical Learning Deficit: Evidence From an Online Measure

  2020influential citation
• UvA-DARE Children With Developmental Language Disorder Have an Auditory Verbal Statistical Learning Deficit: Evidence From an Online Measure

  2020influential citation
• UvA-DARE Children With Developmental Language Disorder Have an Auditory Verbal Statistical Learning Deficit: Evidence From an Online Measure

  2020influential citation
• Children With Developmental Language Disorder Have an Auditory Verbal Statistical Learning Deficit: Evidence From an Online Measure

  2019influential citation
• Computational and Corpus-Based Phraseology: Third International Conference, Europhras 2019, Malaga, Spain, September 25–27, 2019, Proceedings

  2019cites this paper
• Reading and the Neurocognitive Bases of Statistical Learning

  2019cites this paper
• Language Outcomes in Adults with a History of Institutionalization: Behavioral and Neurophysiological Characterization

  2019cites this paper
• Individual Differences in Distributional Learning for Speech: What's Ideal for Ideal Observers?

  2019cites this paper
• Seven-year-olds recall non-adjacent dependencies after overnight retention

  2019cites this paper
• Statistical learning abilities of children with dyslexia across three experimental paradigms

  2019cites this paper
• NarrativeTime: Dense High-Speed Temporal Annotation on a Timeline

  2019cites this paper
• Assessing Visual Statistical Learning in Early-School-Aged Children: The Usefulness of an Online Reaction Time Measure

  2019cites this paper
• Effects of Statistical Learning Ability on the Second Language Processing of Multiword Sequences

  2019cites this paper
• Statistical learning research: A critical review and possible new directions.

  2019cites this paper
• Regularity Extraction Across Species: Associative Learning Mechanisms Shared by Human and Non-Human Primates

  2019cites this paper
• Individual Differences in Verb Bias Sensitivity in Children and Adults With Developmental Language Disorder

  2019cites this paper
• Morphological Development in Normal and Clinical Populations

  2019cites this paper
• NarrativeTime: Dense Temporal Annotation on a Timeline

  2019cites this paper
• Auditory access, language access, and implicit sequence learning in deaf children.

  2018cites this paper
• Redefining "Learning" in Statistical Learning: What Does an Online Measure Reveal About the Assimilation of Visual Regularities?

  2018cites this paper
• On the Relation Between Procedural Learning and Syntactic Proficiency in Gifted Children

  2018cites this paper
• Auditory statistical learning in children: Novel insights from an online measure

  2018influential citation
• Visual artificial grammar learning by rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta): exploring the role of grammar complexity and sequence length

  2018cites this paper
• The Association Between Sequence Learning on the Serial Reaction Time Task and Social Impairments in Autism

  2018cites this paper
• Experience, aptitude and individual differences in native language ultimate attainment.

  2018cites this paper
• Exploring the Process of Statistical Language Learning

  2018cites this paper
• 1 Visual Artificial Grammar Learning by Rhesus Macaques ( Macaca mulatta ) : 1 Exploring the Role of Grammar Complexity and Sequence Length 2 3 4 5

  2018cites this paper
• University of Birmingham Experience , aptitude and individual differences in native language ultimate attainment

  2018cites this paper
• Procedural and declarative memory and language ability in children

  2018cites this paper
• Individual and Developmental Differences in Distributional Learning.

  2018cites this paper
• Non‐adjacent Dependency Learning in Humans and Other Animals

  2018cites this paper
• Procedural-Memory, Working-Memory, and Declarative-Memory Skills Are Each Associated With Dimensional Integration in Sound-Category Learning

  2018cites this paper
• Reading span task performance, linguistic experience, and the processing of unexpected syntactic events.

  2017cites this paper
• This is the native speaker that the non-native speaker outperformed: Individual, education-related differences in the processing and interpretation of Object Relative Clauses by native and non-native speakers of English

  2017cites this paper
• UvA-DARE ( Digital Academic Repository ) Statistical Learning in Specific Language Impairment

  2017cites this paper
• education-related differences in the processing and interpretation of object relative clauses by native and non-native speakers of English

  2017cites this paper