Extracting word-like units when two concurrent regularities collide: electrophysiological evidence

Statistical learning (SL) is a fundamental skill assumed to play a central role in the
acquisition of the rule-governed aspects of language. Despite evidence that SL is
present from early infancy to support the extraction of sound patterns in speech, the
nature of the computations involved is unclear. Here we collected electrophysiological
data while preschool children were exposed to an auditory stream in which two
concurrent regularities were embedded, firstly, under accidental (implicit), and,
subsequently, under intentional (explicit) conditions. Results showed that the extraction
of sound patterns was enhanced by the effect of explicit instructions and, critically, that
under this conditions, children seem to rely on the computation of syllable frequency
rather than on transitional probabilities to extract word-like units.
This study was conducted at the Psychology Research Centre (PSI/01662), University of Minho, and supported by the Grant POCI-01-0145-FEDER-028212 from the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology and the Portuguese Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education.