Children's implicit learning of graphotactic and morphological regularities.
In French, the transcription of the same sound can be guided by both probabilistic graphotactic constraints (e.g., /epsilon t/ is more often transcribed ette after -v than after -f) and morphological constraints (e.g., /epsilon t/ is always transcribed ette when used as a diminutive suffix). Three experiments showed that pseudo-word spellings of 8-to 11-year-old children and adults were influenced by both types of constraints. The influence of graphotactic regularities persisted when reliance on morphological rules was possible, without any falling off as a function of age. This suggests that rules are not abstracted, even after massive amounts of exposure to a rule-based material. These results can be accounted for by a statistical model of implicit learning.
Pacton
Sébastien
S
Institut de Psychologie, Laboratoire Cognition et Développement, Université Paris V (Paris) and Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Boulogne-Billancourt Cedex, France. pacton@psycho.univ-paris5.fr <pacton@psycho.univ-paris5.fr>
Fayol
Michel
M
Perruchet
Pierre
P
D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007858:Learning; D008037:Linguistics; D008297:Male; D010700:Phonetics; D014110:Touch; D014825:Vocabulary