Is retroflexion a stable cue for distributional learning for speech sounds across languages? Learning for some bilingual adults, but not generalisable to a wider population in a well powered pre-registered study
Bilinguals are widely reported to have certain kinds of cognitive advantages, including language learning advantages. One possible pathway is a language-specific transfer effect, whereby sensitivity to structural regularities in known languages can be brought to to-be-acquired languages that share p...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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PeerJ Inc.
2023-07-01
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| Series: | PeerJ |
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| Online Access: | https://peerj.com/articles/15467.pdf |
| _version_ | 1827599448121802752 |
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| author | Hannah L. Goh Luca Onnis Suzy J. Styles |
| author_facet | Hannah L. Goh Luca Onnis Suzy J. Styles |
| author_sort | Hannah L. Goh |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Bilinguals are widely reported to have certain kinds of cognitive advantages, including language learning advantages. One possible pathway is a language-specific transfer effect, whereby sensitivity to structural regularities in known languages can be brought to to-be-acquired languages that share particular features. Here we tested for transfer of a specific linguistic property, sensitivity to retroflexion as contrastive phonemic feature. We designed a task for bilinguals with homogeneous language exposure (i.e., bilingual in the same languages) and heterogeneous feature representation (i.e., differing levels of proficiency). Hindi and Mandarin Chinese both have retroflexion in phoneme contrasts (Hindi: stop consonants, Mandarin: sibilants). In a preregistered study, we conducted a statistical learning task for the Hindi dental-retroflex stop contrast with a group of early parallel English-Mandarin bilinguals, who varied in their Mandarin understanding levels. We based the target sample size on power analysis of a pilot study with a Bayesian stop-rule after minimum threshold. Contrary to the pilot study (N = 15), the main study (N = 50) did not find evidence for a learning effect, nor language-experience variance within the group. This finding suggests that statistical effects for the feature in question may be more fragile than commonly assumed, and may be evident in only a small subsample of the general population (as in our pilot). These stimuli have previously shown learning effects in children, so an additional possibility is that neural commitment to adults’ languages prevents learning of the fine-grained stimulus contrast in question for this adult population. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-09T04:14:18Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-b2632e1a7f7442f8aa5080d655422802 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2167-8359 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-09T04:14:18Z |
| publishDate | 2023-07-01 |
| publisher | PeerJ Inc. |
| record_format | Article |
| series | PeerJ |
| spelling | doaj.art-b2632e1a7f7442f8aa5080d6554228022023-12-03T13:57:15ZengPeerJ Inc.PeerJ2167-83592023-07-0111e1546710.7717/peerj.15467Is retroflexion a stable cue for distributional learning for speech sounds across languages? Learning for some bilingual adults, but not generalisable to a wider population in a well powered pre-registered studyHannah L. Goh0Luca Onnis1Suzy J. Styles2Interdisciplinary Graduate Programme, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, SingaporeCenter for Multilingualism in Society across the Lifespan, University of Oslo, Oslo, NorwayPsychology, School of Social Sciences, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, SingaporeBilinguals are widely reported to have certain kinds of cognitive advantages, including language learning advantages. One possible pathway is a language-specific transfer effect, whereby sensitivity to structural regularities in known languages can be brought to to-be-acquired languages that share particular features. Here we tested for transfer of a specific linguistic property, sensitivity to retroflexion as contrastive phonemic feature. We designed a task for bilinguals with homogeneous language exposure (i.e., bilingual in the same languages) and heterogeneous feature representation (i.e., differing levels of proficiency). Hindi and Mandarin Chinese both have retroflexion in phoneme contrasts (Hindi: stop consonants, Mandarin: sibilants). In a preregistered study, we conducted a statistical learning task for the Hindi dental-retroflex stop contrast with a group of early parallel English-Mandarin bilinguals, who varied in their Mandarin understanding levels. We based the target sample size on power analysis of a pilot study with a Bayesian stop-rule after minimum threshold. Contrary to the pilot study (N = 15), the main study (N = 50) did not find evidence for a learning effect, nor language-experience variance within the group. This finding suggests that statistical effects for the feature in question may be more fragile than commonly assumed, and may be evident in only a small subsample of the general population (as in our pilot). These stimuli have previously shown learning effects in children, so an additional possibility is that neural commitment to adults’ languages prevents learning of the fine-grained stimulus contrast in question for this adult population.https://peerj.com/articles/15467.pdfBilingualismDistributional learningBilingual learning advantagesStatistical learningRetroflex |
| spellingShingle | Hannah L. Goh Luca Onnis Suzy J. Styles Is retroflexion a stable cue for distributional learning for speech sounds across languages? Learning for some bilingual adults, but not generalisable to a wider population in a well powered pre-registered study PeerJ Bilingualism Distributional learning Bilingual learning advantages Statistical learning Retroflex |
| title | Is retroflexion a stable cue for distributional learning for speech sounds across languages? Learning for some bilingual adults, but not generalisable to a wider population in a well powered pre-registered study |
| title_full | Is retroflexion a stable cue for distributional learning for speech sounds across languages? Learning for some bilingual adults, but not generalisable to a wider population in a well powered pre-registered study |
| title_fullStr | Is retroflexion a stable cue for distributional learning for speech sounds across languages? Learning for some bilingual adults, but not generalisable to a wider population in a well powered pre-registered study |
| title_full_unstemmed | Is retroflexion a stable cue for distributional learning for speech sounds across languages? Learning for some bilingual adults, but not generalisable to a wider population in a well powered pre-registered study |
| title_short | Is retroflexion a stable cue for distributional learning for speech sounds across languages? Learning for some bilingual adults, but not generalisable to a wider population in a well powered pre-registered study |
| title_sort | is retroflexion a stable cue for distributional learning for speech sounds across languages learning for some bilingual adults but not generalisable to a wider population in a well powered pre registered study |
| topic | Bilingualism Distributional learning Bilingual learning advantages Statistical learning Retroflex |
| url | https://peerj.com/articles/15467.pdf |
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