Grounding statistical learning in context: The effects of learning and retrieval contexts on cross-situational word learning.
Natural language environments usually provide structured contexts for learning. This study examined the effects of semantically themed contexts-in both learning and retrieval phases-on statistical word learning. Results from 2 experiments consistently showed that participants had higher performance in semantically themed learning contexts. In contrast, themed retrieval contexts did not affect performance. Our work suggests that word learners are sensitive to statistical regularities not just at the level of individual word-object co-occurrences but also at another level containing a whole network of associations among objects and their properties.
Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, The Ohio State University, 915 Olentangy River Rd., Columbus, OH, 43212, USA. Chi-Hsin.Chen@osumc.edu.|Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Indiana University, 1101 E. 10th Street, Bloomington, IN, 47405, USA. Chi-Hsin.Chen@osumc.edu.
Chi-Hsin
CH
Chen
Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Indiana University, 1101 E. 10th Street, Bloomington, IN, 47405, USA.
Chen
C
Yu
D000293:Adolescent; D001245:Association Learning; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D007858:Learning; D008297:Male; D011939:Mental Recall; D012660:Semantics; D013223:Statistics as Topic; D014706:Verbal Learning
Concepts and categories; Human associative learning; Human memory and learning