Second-Language Learning Facilitates Non-Adjacent Dependency Learning: Effects Moderated by Specific Language

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Science
• Linguistics
• Second Language Acquisition

Background:

• Statistical learning enables implicit tracking of linguistic regularities.
• The impact of second language (L2) acquisition on statistical learning remains incompletely understood.
• Research questions whether L2 learning broadly enhances statistical sensitivity or selectively tunes it to L2 patterns.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate how L2 learning influences statistical learning mechanisms.
• To determine if L2 exposure enhances general statistical sensitivity or specific pattern recognition.
• To examine the relationship between L2 learning and statistical learning in adult learners.

Main Methods:

• Adult English speakers learning Mandarin or Spanish, and monolingual controls, participated.
• Two statistical learning tasks were administered: tonal word segmentation and non-adjacent dependency (NAD) learning.
• Tasks were completed at the start of instruction and after two academic terms.

Main Results:

• All groups performed above chance on the tonal task, with no significant improvement over time.
• Only Spanish learners showed increased sensitivity to non-adjacent dependencies (NADs) over time.
• Mandarin learners did not show significant improvements in either task.

Conclusions:

• Second language acquisition does not universally enhance statistical learning abilities.
• L2 exposure appears to selectively modulate learners' sensitivity to specific linguistic structures.
• The findings underscore how linguistic experience shapes fundamental statistical learning processes.