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Related Concept Videos

Language and Cognition01:27

Language and Cognition

Language serves as a bridge between ideas and communication, influencing how individuals perceive and interact with the world. Psychologists have long debated whether language shapes thought or vice versa. This discussion gained grip with Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf in the 1940s, who proposed that language determines thought, a concept known as linguistic determinism. They suggested that the vocabulary and structure of a language influence how its speakers think and perceive reality.
Higher Mental Functions of the Brain: Language01:10

Higher Mental Functions of the Brain: Language

Language is a system of communication that allows the expression of thoughts, ideas, and feelings. The brain processes language in both hemispheres.
Language formation and comprehension take place in the dominant hemisphere. The dominant hemisphere is responsible for understanding the meaning of spoken, written, or sign language, as well as the ability to communicate. For most people, the left hemisphere is the dominant one. The right hemisphere, then, gives tone and emotional context to the...
Language Development01:22

Language Development

Children master language quickly and with relative ease, supported by both biological predisposition and reinforcement. B. F. Skinner (1957) proposed that language is learned through reinforcement, while Noam Chomsky (1965) argued that language acquisition mechanisms are biologically determined.
The critical period for language acquisition suggests that the ability to acquire language is at its peak early in life. As people age, this proficiency decreases. Language development begins very...
Lateralization01:28

Lateralization

Brain lateralization refers to the division of mental processes and functions between the two hemispheres of the brain, a phenomenon that optimizes neural efficiency and underpins complex abilities in humans. This specialization allows each hemisphere to perform tasks where it has a comparative advantage, facilitating more refined cognitive capabilities across different domains.
Components of Language01:24

Components of Language

Language, whether spoken, signed, or written, consists of specific components: lexicon and grammar. The lexicon is the vocabulary of a language, comprising its words. Grammar is the set of rules used to convey meaning through the lexicon. For example, English grammar adds “-ed” to most verbs to indicate past tense. Words are formed by combining phonemes, which are the basic sound units of a language. Different languages have different sets of phonemes (e.g., “ah” vs. “eh”). Phonemes combine to...
Cognitive Learning01:21

Cognitive Learning

Cognitive learning is based on purposive behavior, incidental learning, and insight learning.
E. C. Tolman's theory of purposive behavior emphasizes that much behavior is goal-directed. He argued that to understand behavior, we must look at the entire sequence of actions leading to a goal. For instance, high school students study hard, not just due to past reinforcement but also to achieve the goal of getting into a good college.
Tolman introduced the idea that behavior is influenced by...

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Related Experiment Video

Updated: May 30, 2026

Measuring Statistical Learning Across Modalities and Domains in School-Aged Children Via an Online Platform and Neuroimaging Techniques
08:05

Measuring Statistical Learning Across Modalities and Domains in School-Aged Children Via an Online Platform and Neuroimaging Techniques

Published on: June 30, 2020

On-line individual differences in statistical learning predict language processing.

Jennifer B Misyak1, Morten H Christiansen, J Bruce Tomblin

  • 1Department of Psychology, Cornell University Ithaca, NY, USA.

Frontiers in Psychology
|August 12, 2011
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Individual differences in statistical learning ability correlate with language performance in adults and children. This suggests statistical learning, not just memory, impacts language skills.

Keywords:
artificial grammarindividual differenceslanguage processingrelative clausesserial-reaction timestatistical learning

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Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Psychology
  • Developmental Psychology
  • Linguistics

Background:

  • Individual differences in language ability are well-documented.
  • Previous research linked language skills to verbal working memory and language experience.
  • The role of statistical learning in these individual differences remains underexplored.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the hypothesis that individual differences in statistical learning ability are associated with variations in language performance.
  • To develop and utilize a novel on-line paradigm for assessing statistical learning.
  • To determine if statistical learning predicts on-line language processing abilities.

Main Methods:

  • Developed a novel on-line statistical learning paradigm combining a serial-reaction time task with artificial grammar learning.
  • Experiment 1: Assessed the trajectory and individual differences in learning nonadjacent dependencies.
  • Experiment 2: Examined the predictive power of individual statistical learning differences on processing center-embedded relative clauses.

Main Results:

  • The novel paradigm provided an on-line index of individual differences in statistical learning.
  • Individual differences in statistical learning significantly predicted variations in on-line processing of complex linguistic structures.
  • Statistical learning ability was linked to the processing of long-distance dependencies.

Conclusions:

  • Individual differences in statistical learning contribute to variations in language performance.
  • Statistical learning is a key factor underlying individual differences in language ability.
  • This research offers new insights into the cognitive mechanisms supporting language acquisition and proficiency.