Reading and the Neurocognitive Bases of Statistical Learning¹

The processes underlying word reading are shaped by statistical properties of the writing system. According to some theoretical perspectives (e.g. Harm & Seidenberg, 2004) reading acquisition should be understood as an exercise in statistical learning. Statistical learning (SL) involves the extraction of organizing principles from a set of inputs. Several lines of research provide convergent evidence supporting the connection between SL and reading acquisition (e.g., Arciuli & Simpson, 2012; Frost et al., 2014; Bogaerts et al., 2015). An obstacle to fully appreciating the theoretical and educational implications of these findings is that SL is itself not well understood. In this paper, we review the current literature on SL with a particular focus on organizing this literature by grounding it in theories of learning and memory more generally. This approach can clarify the nature of SL and provide a framework for understanding its role in reading, reading acquisition, and reading disorders.