Do infants retain the statistics of a statistical learning experience? Insights from a developmental cognitive neuroscience perspective

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40 Scopus citations

Abstract

Statistical structure abounds in language. Human infants show a striking capacity for using statistical learning (SL) to extract regularities in their linguistic environments, a process thought to bootstrap their knowledge of language. Critically, studies of SL test infants in the minutes immediately following familiarization, but long-term retention unfolds over hours and days, with almost no work investigating retention of SL. This creates a critical gap in the literature given thatwe knowlittle about howsingle or multiple SL experiences translate into permanent knowledge. Furthermore, different memory systems with vastly different encoding and retention profiles emerge at different points in development, with the underlying memory system dictating the fidelity of the memory trace hours later. I describe the scant literature on retention of SL, the learning and retention properties of memory systems as they apply to SL, and the development of these memory systems. I propose that different memory systems support retention of SL in infant and adult learners, suggesting an explanation for the slow pace of natural language acquisition in infancy. I discuss the implications of developing memory systems for SL and suggest that we exercise caution in extrapolating from adult to infant properties of SL.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number20160054
JournalPhilosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
Volume372
Issue number1711
DOIs
StatePublished - Jan 5 2017

Keywords

  • Brain development
  • Infant learning
  • Language acquisition
  • Long-term retention
  • Memory systems
  • Statistical learning

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology
  • General Agricultural and Biological Sciences

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