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Formal language hierarchy reflects different levels of cognitive complexity.
Susana Silva1, Filomena Inácio2, Daniel Rocha E Sousa3
1Center for Psychology at University of Porto, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, Psychology Department, University of Porto.
Summary
Formal language hierarchy may reflect cognitive complexity. New experiments suggest adjacent dependencies are learned differently than nonadjacent, and nested structures are easier than crossed ones, clarifying cognitive language learning.
Area of Science:
- Psycholinguistics
- Cognitive Science
- Computational Linguistics
Background:
- Formal language hierarchy proposes increasing syntactic complexity correlates with cognitive difficulty.
- Previous findings on cognitive complexity of formal language hierarchy are debated due to potential confounds like repetition monitoring and linguistic experience.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the cognitive complexity of formal language hierarchy by addressing confounds in prior research.
- To determine if syntactic complexity in formal grammars translates to a hierarchy of cognitive difficulty.
Main Methods:
- Conducted two artificial grammar learning experiments.
- Manipulated reliance on repetition monitoring strategies.
- Tested participants with no prior experience with crossed dependencies.
Main Results:
- Observed significant differences in learning adjacent versus nonadjacent dependencies.
- Found that nested nonadjacent dependencies were learned more easily than crossed nonadjacent dependencies.
- Results suggest formal language hierarchy may align with cognitive complexity.
Conclusions:
- Formal language hierarchy appears to translate into a hierarchy of cognitive complexity.
- Controlled experiments mitigate confounds, supporting a cognitive basis for syntactic complexity.
- Findings contribute to understanding the cognitive underpinnings of language acquisition and processing.
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