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Cited by 517Language Development and DisordersPhonetics and Phonology ResearchReading and Literacy Development

Statistical learning and language acquisition

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Romberg, Alexa R., Saffran, Jenny R.·2010·WIREs Cognitive Science
DOI 10.1002/wcs.78PMC PMC3112001
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Abstract

Human learners, including infants, are highly sensitive to structure in their environment. Statistical learning refers to the process of extracting this structure. A major question in language acquisition in the past few decades has been the extent to which infants use statistical learning mechanisms to acquire their native language. There have been many demonstrations showing infants' ability to extract structures in linguistic input, such as the transitional probability between adjacent elements. This paper reviews current research on how statistical learning contributes to language acquisition. Current research is extending the initial findings of infants' sensitivity to basic statistical information in many different directions, including investigating how infants represent regularities, learn about different levels of language, and integrate information across situations. These current directions emphasize studying statistical language learning in context: within language, within the infant learner, and within the environment as a whole. WIREs Cogn Sci 2010 1 906–914 This article is categorized under: Linguistics > Language Acquisition Psychology > Language

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  • In implicit statistical learning tasks, participants can differentiate well-formed sequences from those that are not, but cannot verbalize the basis for their judgments.

    “Studies found that participants can differentiate well-formed sequences from those that are not, but cannot verbalize the basis for their judgments (Aslin & Newport, 2012;Romberg & Saffran, 2010).”

    From Mind Your Step (by Step): Chain-of-Thought can Reduce Performance on Tasks where Thinking Makes Humans Worse (2024) · cites this paper as Romberg & Saffran, 2010

    The INWARD section (page unavailable) reports that infants distinguished syllable sequences following a familiar ABA or ABB pattern from sequences that did not. It does not report that participants were asked to explain their judgments or could not verbalize the basis for them; it says the learning process remains unclear. (LLM, conf=0.86)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

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Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Romberg, A. R., & Saffran, J. R.
Affiliations
University of Wisconsin–Madison (US)
Corresponding author
Romberg, Alexa R.
ORCID
Saffran, Jenny R.
Venue
WIREs Cognitive Science
Publisher
Wiley
Published
2010-07-26
Volume
1
Issue
6
Pages
906-914
ISSN
  • 1939-5078 (ISSN-L)
  • 1939-5086
DOI
10.1002/wcs.78
PMC
PMC3112001
OpenAlex
W1993984071
Cited by
517
References
1
Citations by year
2026: 21 · 2025: 32 · 2024: 41 · 2023: 55 · 2022: 53 · 2021: 36 · 2020: 37 · 2019: 35 · 2018: 30 · 2017: 28 · 2016: 31 · 2015: 37 · 2014: 38 · 2013: 22 · 2012: 16
FWCI
25.78
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/termsAndConditions#vor (vor)
Locations
  • Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews Cognitive Science (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
Funders
  • National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (F31DC009940)
  • Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (R01HD037466)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Language Development and Disorders
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Phonetics and Phonology Research
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Reading and Literacy Development
Keywords
statistical learning, language acquisition, infant language acquisition, transition probabilities

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