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Developmental Constraints on Learning Artificial Grammars with Fixed, Flexible and Free Word Order
Iga Nowak1,2, Giosuè Baggio2,3
1Institute of Neuroscience and Psychology, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, United Kingdom.
Frontiers in Psychology
|November 2, 2017
Summary
Children
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Science
- Developmental Psychology
- Linguistics
Background:
- Human learning exhibits constraints influencing information acquisition.
- Developmental constraints in children are theorized to aid language acquisition.
- Artificial grammar learning provides a controlled environment to study learning constraints.
Purpose of the Study:
- Investigate developmental constraints on learning artificial grammars.
- Examine how word frequency and position influence learning in adults and children.
- Link learning constraints to linguistic typology.
Main Methods:
- Constructed four finite-state artificial grammars with fixed, flexible, or free word order.
- Exposed adults (N=84) and kindergarten children (N=100) to artificial grammar strings.
- Assessed recognition of novel strings from learned grammars.
Main Results:
- Adults excelled with grammars showing clear regularities (fixed and flexible).
- Children performed better with grammars mirroring natural language distributions (flexible and free).
- Children's learning aligned with function-word and content-word distributions.
Conclusions:
- Developmental constraints shape learning in distinct ways for adults and children.
- Children's learning preferences align with natural language structures.
- Findings support a connection between learning constraints and linguistic typology.
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