title: Distributional learning has immediate and long-lasting effects.
abstract: Evidence of distributional learning, a statistical learning mechanism centered on relative frequency of exposure to different tokens, has mainly come from short-term learning and therefore does not ostensibly address the development of important learning processes. The present longitudinal study examines both short- and long-term effects of distributional learning of phonetic categories on non-native sound discrimination over a 12-month period. Two groups of listeners were exposed to a two-minute distribution of auditory stimuli in which the most frequently presented tokens either approximated or exaggerated the natural production of the speech sounds, whereas a control group listened to a piece of classical music for the same length of time. Discrimination by listeners in the two distribution groups improved immediately after the short exposure, replicating previous results. Crucially, this improvement was maintained after six and 12 months, demonstrating that distributional learning has long-lasting effects.
authors.affiliation: MARCS Institute, University of Western Sydney, Bankstown Campus, Locked Bag 1797, Penrith, NSW 2751, Australia. Electronic address: paola.escudero@uws.edu.au.
authors.forename: Paola
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Escudero
authors.affiliation: Institute of Humanities & Creative Arts, University of Worcester, Henwick Grove, Worcester WR2 6AJ, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Williams
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000328:Adult; D001307:Auditory Perception / Q000502:physiology; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D007858:Learning / Q000502:physiology; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010700:Phonetics; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Distributional learning; Longitudinal development; Non-native sound discrimination; Statistical learning