The DOI matches its Crossref record; 45 of the 45 references it cites were found in a registry or an index; 8 of the 34 sources its claims cite were checked for support.
Incidental Language Learning: Listening (and Learning) Out of the Corner of Your Ear
Abstract
Two experiments investigated the performance of first-grade children and adults on an incidental language-learning task. Learning entailed word segmentation from continuous speech, an initial and crucial component of language acquisition. Subjects were briefly exposed to an unsegmented artificial language, presented auditorily, in which the only cues to word boundaries were the transitional probabilities between syllables. Subjects were not told that they were listening to a language, or even to listen at all; rather, they were engaged in a cover task of creating computer illustrations. Both adults and children learned the words of the language. Moreover, the children performed as well as the adults. These data suggest that a statistical learning mechanism (transitional probability computation) is able to operate incidentally and, surprisingly, as well in children as in adults.
Overview
AI snapshot
Written from the paper’s full text.
TL;DR
Two experiments showed that adults and 6- to 7-year-old children could learn words from a continuous artificial speech stream incidentally, while engaged in an unrelated drawing task. Children performed as well as adults, suggesting statistical word segmentation can operate without directed attention and may be age-invariant.
Key findings
- In Experiment 1, after one 21-min exposure, adults scored 21.1/36 (58.6%) and children scored 21.3/36 (59.2%), both significantly above chance (adults: t(11) = 2.38, p < .05; children: t(12) = 3.67, p < .01), with no significant adult-child difference, t(23) > 1, n.s.
- In Experiment 2, after doubled exposure across two sessions, adults scored 26.3/36 (73.1%) and children scored 24.6/36 (68.3%), both significantly above chance (adults: t(11) = 6.33, p < .01; children: t(10) = 5.56, p < .01), again with no significant adult-child difference, t(21) > 1, n.s.
- Doubling exposure improved performance significantly, F(1, 46) = 12.5, p < .01, with no main effect of age, F(1, 46) = 0.162, n.s., and no interaction between exposure length and age, F(1, 46) = 0.94, n.s.
- Subjects learned the words despite not being told the tape was a language or that they would be tested; the only cues to word boundaries were transitional probabilities between syllables, higher within words (.31–1.0) than across word boundaries (.1–.2).
Methods
- Participants were monolingual English speakers: Experiment 1 had 12 University of Rochester undergraduates and 13 children aged 6–7; Experiment 2 had 12 paid adult college students and 11 children aged 6–7 from University of Rochester summer camps.
- Exposure used a 21-min synthesized speech stream containing 300 tokens of each of six trisyllabic nonsense words in random order, with no pauses or acoustic/prosodic cues to word boundaries; learning was tested with 36 two-alternative forced-choice trials pairing words against nonword foils.
- The cover task had subjects create computer illustrations with Kid Pix 2 while the tape played; Experiment 2 repeated the 21-min exposure on a second day before testing.
Limitations
- The paper states the linguistic input was more concentrated than natural learning environments and was impoverished, lacking utterance boundaries and acoustic/prosodic cues that probabilistically correlate with word boundaries; the study targeted incidental learning of statistical information rather than a full model of natural word-boundary acquisition.
- The paper states it was not trying to assess whether learning occurred without conscious awareness; subjects varied in reported awareness, and these differences did not correlate with performance.
- The paper states further research is needed to see whether child superiority in later natural-language stages appears in more complex statistical learning tasks or involves different, nonstatistical mechanisms; evident from the text, the samples were small and limited to 6- and 7-year-olds using an artificial language, so generalization to infants and natural language acquisition is not established.
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Claims the paper makes
11 Own interpretation · 8 Own method · 5 Supported so far · 4 No full text of the sources · 4 Own result · 3 Sources not found · 2 Partly supported · 2 Not checked yet · 2 No basis given · 1 Not supported · accuracy not yet measured
The cited sources support only part of this claim — read each source’s verdict below.
In the paper
“This absence of age differences is in line with the literature on age of learning in natural language acquisition.”
What the sources say
- Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Johnson & Newport, 1989 source
- Partly supportedcites Newport, 1990 sourceExperimental — accuracy not yet measured
In “Evidence of Maturational Constraints in Second Language Learning,” the paper reports no significant relationship between age of arrival and performance among learners arriving at ages 17–39, which could support an absence of age differences among adults. But it reports strong age-of-acquisition effects through childhood in both first and second language learning. The citing sentence does not specify the age range or language feature for which differences were absent. (LLM, conf=0.83)
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: unclear — It is unclear whether the paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
The sources with a verdict support this claim; the rest weren’t checked yet, have no full text we could read, or their verdicts aren’t rated yet.
In the paper
“basic word order is acquired equivalently by both child and adult learners”
What the sources say
- Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Johnson & Newport, 1989 source
- Supportedcites Newport, 1990 source
In “Evidence of Maturational Constraints in First Language Learning,” Figure 1a is described as showing virtually perfect ASL basic-word-order scores across groups differing in age of first exposure. The second-language section likewise reports very similar word-order control for native and late learners of English. (LLM, conf=0.92)
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: unclear — It is unclear whether the paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
The cited sources support only part of this claim — read each source’s verdict below.
In the paper
“Across a language sample, sounds that co-occur within words tend to be more highly correlated with one another than sound pairs spanning word boundaries.”
What the sources say
- Not matchedcites Aslin et al., 1996
Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.
- Partly supportedcites Brent & Cartwright, 1996 sourceExperimental — accuracy not yet measured
Section 4.1 (page unavailable) describes placing word boundaries at troughs in transitional probabilities between syllables, and Section 5 says frequent adjacent subsequences are more likely to be treated as one word. These passages support the general idea that co-occurrence helps distinguish within-word sequences from boundary-spanning ones, but they do not report a comparison showing that sound pairs within words are, across a language sample, more highly correlated than pairs spanning boundaries. (LLM, conf=0.78)
- Not matchedcites Hayes & Clark, 1970
Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.
plaincorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
- Not matched
The sources with a verdict support this claim; the rest weren’t checked yet, have no full text we could read, or their verdicts aren’t rated yet.
In the paper
“infants may be able to exploit statistical cues to word boundaries”
What the sources say
- Not matchedcites Aslin, Woodward, LaMendola, & Bever, 1996
Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.
- Supportedcites Brent & Cartwright, 1996 source
The Behavioral experiments section (p. unavailable) reports that 9-month-olds responded to a word followed by a variety of other words, as expected if they used distributional regularity to identify word boundaries. This supports the claim’s cautious wording that infants may exploit statistical cues. (LLM, conf=0.90)
- Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Saffran, Newport, & Aslin, 1996 source
hedgedconditional- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
- Not matched
The sources with a verdict support this claim; the rest weren’t checked yet, have no full text we could read, or their verdicts aren’t rated yet.
In the paper
“In later stages, learners who began as children surpass those who began as adults”
What the sources say
- Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Johnson & Newport, 1989 source
- Not matchedcites Krashen, Long, & Scarcella, 1982
Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.
- Supportedcites Newport, 1990 source
The Summary states that learners who begin in childhood reach more systematic levels of asymptotic language performance than those who begin in adulthood. This supports the claim about their relative performance in later stages; no page number is provided in our copy. (LLM, conf=0.94)
plaincorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: unclear — It is unclear whether the paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
The sources with a verdict support this claim; the rest weren’t checked yet, have no full text we could read, or their verdicts aren’t rated yet.
In the paper
“Critical-period effects (i.e., superiority of child learners over adults) emerge later in learning, particularly for more complex syntactic and morphological structures”
What the sources say
- Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Johnson & Newport, 1989 source
- Not matchedcites Krashen et al., 1982
Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.
- Supportedcites Newport, 1990 source
In “Evidence of Maturational Constraints in Second Language Learning” (page unavailable), Newport contrasts adults’ advantage during the first year with differences in ultimately achieved competence, and reports age-related differences across most tested aspects of English morphology and syntax. The “What Changes Over Maturation” section (page unavailable) explains why children may have an advantage for structures requiring componential analysis. (LLM, conf=0.89)
plaincorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
The paper states this without a source or data behind it here, so there is nothing to check it against. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“These differences in reported awareness did not correlate with performance.”
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“There was no main effect of age, F(1, 46) = 0.162, n.s.”
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“no interaction between length of exposure and age, F(1, 46) = 0.94, n.s.”
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“This finding suggests that the computation of the kinds of lowlevel contingencies found in some aspects of linguistic input is achieved with equal ease by learners who differ vastly on other dimensions of cognitive ability.”
hedged- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
- Rests on an assumption: Word segmentation from continuous speech is an initial and crucial component of language acquisition, and the artificial-language segmentation task validly models that component.
- It may state two separate claims as one. 13
- Probably not a substantial claim. 13
At least one cited source doesn’t support this claim or points to a different paper, and none confirmed it — see the verdicts below.
In the paper
“language acquisition does not favor adults over children. Rather, the initial stages of language acquisition are characterized by age invariance.”
What the sources say
- Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Johnson & Newport, 1989 source
- Not matchedcites Krashen, Long, & Scarcella, 1982
Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.
- Disputedcites Newport, 1990 sourceExperimental — accuracy not yet measured
In “What Changes Over Maturation” (page unavailable), Newport says that children and adults make different types of errors in the early stages of learning ASL, contrary to the claim of age invariance. The paper also predicts a child advantage for componential analysis and an adult advantage for whole-word learning, rather than a uniform pattern across language acquisition. (LLM, conf=0.88)
Checked by a reasoning model — may be wrong.
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: unclear — It is unclear whether the paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
It may state two separate claims as one.
The sources with a verdict support this claim; the rest weren’t checked yet, have no full text we could read, or their verdicts aren’t rated yet.
In the paper
“recent computational models of language acquisition suggest that at least some pertinent language-learning mechanisms may induce structure from the input using statistical methods similar to those suggested by incidental-learning research”
What the sources say
- Supportedcites Brent & Cartwright, 1996 source
In “7. Three hypotheses” and “EXPERIMENT 1” (pages unavailable), the paper describes computer simulations that segment child-directed speech into words using distributional regularity, starting with no known words. “8.1. Algorithm” describes a measure based on the relative frequencies of candidate words. This supports the cited, hedged claim that a computational language-acquisition model can derive structure from input using statistical methods; the comparison to incidental-learning research is the citing authors’ framing. (LLM, conf=0.88)
- Not matchedcites Christiansen, 1994
Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.
- Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Elman, 1990 source
hedgedconditional- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Supported
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“the children performed as well as the adults in both experiments.”
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
It may state two separate claims as one.
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Some subjects reported that they were aware of learning during the exposure period, whereas others actively tuned out the speech stream and were unaware of learning anything at all.”
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: unclear — It is unclear whether the paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
It may state two separate claims as one.
What the paper did — it cites no source for this, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Subjects were told that they were participating in an experiment investigating the influence of auditory stimuli on creativity, and that they had approximately 20 min to work on an illustration using Kid Pix 2©, a coloring program designed for children, while a tape was playing in the background.”
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. It may state two separate claims as one.
What the paper did — it cites no source for this, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Subjects were not told that the sounds were actually words from a nonsense language.”
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim.
The paper states this without a source or data behind it here, so there is nothing to check it against. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“the transitional probability from one sound to the next will generally be highest when the two sounds follow one another word-internally; transitional probabilities spanning word boundaries will tend to be relatively low.”
plaincorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
It may state two separate claims as one.
What the paper did — it cites no source for this, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Subjects were not told that they were listening to a language, or even to listen at all; rather, they were engaged in a cover task of creating computer illustrations.”
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. It may state two separate claims as one.
In the paper
“Information about event frequency is acquired by humans across a broad range of natural and experimental situations, and is maintained even when there is no reason to remember the events in question”
What the sources say
- Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Hasher, Zacks, Rose, & Sanft, 1987 source
plaindirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. It may state two separate claims as one.
What the paper did — it cites no source for this, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Six nonword foils were created to test subjects' learning, using syllables from the language in sequences that never occurred during the exposure period, even across word boundaries”
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim.
What the paper did — it cites no source for this, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“the linguistic input was in the background and not part of the primary task.”
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
It may state two separate claims as one.
What the paper did — it cites no source for this, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“no pauses or any other acoustic or prosodic cues to word boundaries were present.”
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“The fact that children, in particular, learned under these conditions suggests that incidental learning is a robust phenomenon that may play a role in natural language acquisition.”
hedgedconditional- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
It may state two separate claims as one.
- Rests on an assumption: Word segmentation from continuous speech is an initial and crucial component of language acquisition, and the artificial-language segmentation task validly models that component.
- Rests on an assumption: During exposure, subjects' attention was not directed to the speech stream or to the word segmentation task.
What the paper did — it cites no source for this, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“After four practice trials using word-nonword pairs from English to ensure that subjects understood the response procedure, the 36 test trials were presented.”
plaindirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“These results also suggest that the computation of transitional probabilities can proceed incidentally, and therefore might underlie aspects of both natural language acquisition and learning in other domains.”
hedgedconditional- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
It may state two separate claims as one.
- Rests on an assumption: Word segmentation from continuous speech is an initial and crucial component of language acquisition, and the artificial-language segmentation task validly models that component.
- Rests on an assumption: During exposure, subjects' attention was not directed to the speech stream or to the word segmentation task.
In the paper
“It has been suggested that the frequency of events present in the environment is a fundamental type of information that is encoded in memory incidentally”
What the sources say
- Not matchedcites Hasher & Zacks, 1984
Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.
hedgeddirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim.
- Not matched
None of the sources cited for this claim have been checked yet.
In the paper
“implicit-learning phenomena are based on learning mechanisms that capitalize on the statistical structure of the input”
What the sources say
- Not matchedcites Cleeremans, 1993
Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.
- Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Perruchet & Pacteau, 1990 source
- Not matchedcites Reber, 1993
Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.
plaindirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim.
- Not matched
None of the sources cited for this claim have been checked yet.
In the paper
“The process of acquiring language is thus incidental in the sense that the child's primary task is presumably understanding, rather than acquiring, language”
What the sources say
- Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Chomsky, 1975
- Not matchedcites Krashen, 1985
Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.
hedged- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Rather than including all the cues necessary for a model of the natural acquisition of word boundaries, the experimental situation specifically targeted the incidental learning of statistical information.”
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
It may state two separate claims as one.
- Rests on an assumption: Word segmentation from continuous speech is an initial and crucial component of language acquisition, and the artificial-language segmentation task validly models that component.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“the linguistic input presented a more concentrated learning exposure than would be available to a learner in a more natural learning environment.”
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Rests on an assumption: Word segmentation from continuous speech is an initial and crucial component of language acquisition, and the artificial-language segmentation task validly models that component.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Such learning abilities are a critical aspect of the child's genetic endowment, and as such may also be a crucial component of the human language-learning instinct.”
hedgedconditional- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: unclear — It is unclear whether it could be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
It may state two separate claims as one.
- Rests on an assumption: Word segmentation from continuous speech is an initial and crucial component of language acquisition, and the artificial-language segmentation task validly models that component.
In the paper
“the input was quite impoverished, containing neither utterance boundaries nor the acoustic and prosodic cues that are probabilistically correlated with word boundaries in some languages”
What the sources say
- Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Saffran et al., 1996 source
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
It may state two separate claims as one.
- Rests on an assumption: Word segmentation from continuous speech is an initial and crucial component of language acquisition, and the artificial-language segmentation task validly models that component.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“The present study also provided a learning situation that is perhaps even more challenging than the child's actual language environment.”
hedged- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: fails — The paper may give no reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper may give no reason why it holds.
- Rests on an assumption: Word segmentation from continuous speech is an initial and crucial component of language acquisition, and the artificial-language segmentation task validly models that component.
The paper relies on this without support.
Little research has examined the characteristics of incidental learning pertinent to children's language acquisition.
“However, little research has examined the characteristics of incidental learning pertinent to the process of children's language acquisition.”
The paper relies on this without support.
Word segmentation from continuous speech is an initial and crucial component of language acquisition, and the artificial-language segmentation task validly models that component.
“Learning entailed word segmentation from continuous speech, an initial and crucial component of language acquisition.”
The paper relies on this without support.
During exposure, subjects' attention was not directed to the speech stream or to the word segmentation task.
“Any learning that occurred was thus doubly incidental, in that attention was directed neither to the word segmentation task nor to the acoustic stimuli forming the words.”
The paper relies on this without support.
Before children can begin to acquire syntax, they must discover the words of their language.
“Before children can begin to acquire syntax, they must discover the words of their language”
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
In the citing paper
“A second set of studies demonstrated that first-grade children as well as adults were able to succeed on this task, even when the speech stream was presented incidentally while subjects were attending to another task (Saffran et al., 1997).”
From Statistical learning of tone sequences by human infants and adults (1999) · cites this paper as Saffran et al., 1997
Statistics recomputed
Every reported test result, recomputed from its test statistic and degrees of freedom. A result shows as not adding up only once an independent check has confirmed it.
- ConsistentF(1, 46) = 0.162reported n.s. · recomputed p = .689
“F(1, 46) = 0.162, n.s.”
- ConsistentF(1, 46) = 0.94reported n.s. · recomputed p = .337
“F(1, 46) = 0.94, n.s.”
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
Each contradiction between two passages listed here was confirmed by an independent check.
Rated minor: it would not touch a result — a value no result rests on, a p-value that stays on the same side of the significance level, or a conflict that is clerical, resolved elsewhere in the paper, or outside its own findings.
In the paper
§ Results and Discussion
“The difference between adults' and children's performance was not significant, t(23) > 1, n.s.”
§ Results and Discussion
“The mean score for the adults was 21.1 out of a possible 36 (58.6%), where chance equals 18. A single-sample t test (two-tailed) showed that performance was significantly better than chance, t(11) = 2.38, p < .05. The mean score for the children was 21.3 (59.2%), which was also significantly better than chance, t(12) = 3.67, p < .01.”
Rated minor: it would not touch a result — a value no result rests on, a p-value that stays on the same side of the significance level, or a conflict that is clerical, resolved elsewhere in the paper, or outside its own findings.
In the paper
§ Results and Discussion
“no interaction between length of exposure and age, F(1, 46) = 0.94, n.s.”
§ Method
“Twelve adult college students from the University of Rochester campus were recruited as subjects, and paid $10 for their participation. Eleven 6- and 7-year-old children were recruited from summer camps held at the University of Rochester.”
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BackgroundEvents structure information accessibility less in children than adults
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BackgroundMethodInfluentialAttentional Selection: Top-Down, Bottom-Up and History-Based Biases
Theeuwes, J., & Failing, M. (2020) · Cited by 7
Correction: Learning and Long-Term Retention of Large-Scale Artificial Languages
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“…make use of this torrent of covariations, it is known that humans, infants and adults, are sensitive to statistical regularities at multiple levels (Saffran et al., 1996, 1997, 1999), and that statistical learning of auditory stimulus seems to be stronger than visual or tactile learning, specially…”
BackgroundLexical Segmentation in Artificial Word Learning: The Effects of Converging Sublexical Cues
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The Link Between Language and Spelling: What Speech-Language Pathologists and Teachers Need to Know
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Incidental learning in music reading: The music contingency learning task
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“the co-occurrences around them, but they can learn this information and use it in a variety of tasks (e.g., in language acquisition; see Aslin et al., 1998; Saffran et al., 1997; Saffran, Aslin, & Newport, 1996; Saffran, Newport, & Aslin, 1996).”
BackgroundStatistical and connectionist models of speech perception and word recognition
Gaskell, M. G. (2012) · Oxford University Press eBooks · doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198568971.013.0004 · Cited by 6
Absolute pitch and related abilities
Dooley, K. (2011) · eScholarship (California Digital Library) · Cited by 7
Assessing the sensitivity of EEG-based frequency-tagging as a metric for statistical learningPreprint
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Attention and MemoryPreprint
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Development of conscious knowledge during early incidental learning of L2 syntax
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Statistical learning of L2 lexical bundles through unimodal, bimodal, and multimodal stimuli
Mirzaei, A., Farsani, M. A., & Chang, H. (2023) · Language Teaching Research · doi:10.1177/13621688231193079 · Cited by 6
“Nonetheless, there is some counterevidence (e.g. Gebhart et al., 2009; Saffran et al., 1997) suggesting that adult learners involved in statistical learning tasks show both implicit and explicit knowledge, owing to their ability to explicitly extract language conventions from regularities embedded…”
Implicit prediction as a consequence of statistical learning.
Batterink, L. J., Hsiung, S., Herrera-Chaves, D., & Köhler, S. (2025) · Cognition · doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106088 · Cited by 6
“In the first laboratory demonstrations of statistical learning (Saffran, Aslin, & Newport, 1996; Saffran, Newport, & Aslin, 1996; Saffran, Newport, Aslin, Tunick, & Barrueco, 1997), infants, children and adults were presented with a continuous speech stream composed of repeating trisyllabic…”
Why Second Language Acquisition of sign languages matters to general SLA research
Gullberg, M. (2022) · Language Interaction and Acquisition · doi:10.1075/lia.22022.gul · Cited by 5
Processing of Synonyms and Homographs in Bilingual and Monolingual Speakers
Martin, C. D., Pastureau, R., Kerr, E., & de Bruin, A. (2024) · Journal of Cognition · doi:10.5334/joc.329 · Cited by 4
Serial order learning of subliminal visual stimuli: evidence of multistage learning
Kido, K., & Makioka, S. (2015) · Frontiers in Psychology · doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00076 · Cited by 5
“Statistical speech learning has been reproduced in adults and children as well as infants (Saffran et al., 1997, 1999).”
Infant perception of atypical speech signals.
Vouloumanos, A., & Gelfand, H. M. (2012) · Developmental Psychology · doi:10.1037/a0029055 · Cited by 5
Behavioral vs. cognitive views of speech perception and production.
Schlinger, H. D. (2010) · The Journal of Speech and Language Pathology – Applied Behavior Analysis · doi:10.1037/h0100271 · Cited by 5
Preschool Predictors of Kindergarten Language Outcomes
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“For example, it is known that very young infants can learn novel word boundaries based on co-occurrence statistics after only minutes of auditory input (e.g. Gomez & Gerken, 2000; Kirkham, Slemmer, & Johnson, 2002; Sabbagh & Gelman, 2000; Saffran, Aslin, & Newport, 1996; Saffran et al., 1997).”
BackgroundObjective and subjective measures of cross-situational learning
Franco, A., Cleeremans, A., & Destrebecqz, A. (2016) · Acta Psychologica · doi:10.1016/j.actpsy.2016.02.001 · Cited by 5
Smyser, H., & Alt, M. (2017) · Journal of Research in Reading · doi:10.1111/1467-9817.12118 · Cited by 5
Purepecha, a Polysynthetic but Predominantly Dependent-Marking Language
Chamoreau, C. (2017) · Oxford University Press eBooks · doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199683208.013.38 · Cited by 5
Effects of healthy aging and left hemisphere stroke on statistical language learning
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Self-citationLa conscience auto-organisatrice
Perruchet, P., & Vinter, A. (2008) · L’Année psychologique · doi:10.4074/s0003503308001048 · Cited by 3
The Phonological Dimension of Grammatical Markedness
Iscrulescu, C. (2006) · doi:10.25549/usctheses-m113 · Cited by 5
The Role of Implicit Learning in Incidental Vocabulary Acquisition while Reading
Seipel, B. (2011) · University of Minnesota Digital Conservancy (University of Minnesota) · Cited by 5
Dynamic system approaches to language acquisition
van Dijk, M., & van Geert, P. L. C. (2022) · Elsevier eBooks · doi:10.1016/b978-0-12-818630-5.07041-x · Cited by 5
Jessop, A., Pine, J. M., & Gobet, F. R. (2023) · doi:10.31234/osf.io/dukpt · Cited by 5
Implicit learning and individual differences in speech recognition: an exploratory study
Khayr, R., Karawani, H., & Banai, K. (2023) · Frontiers in Psychology · doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1238823 · Cited by 5
“Incidental learning is thought to play a role in different aspects of language such as language acquisition, non-native speech learning and orthographic processing (Saffran et al., 1997; Hulstijn, 2012; Protopapas et al., 2017).”
BackgroundSweet, S. J., Hedger, S. C. V., & Batterink, L. J. (2023) · Cognition · doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2023.105649 · Cited by 4
The threshold of rule productivity in infants
Shi, R., & Emond, E. (2023) · Frontiers in Psychology · doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1251124 · Cited by 4
“Similarly, in Saffran et al. (1997) adults and 6-to 7-year-olds passively tracked transitional probabilities in an artificial language while actively performing another task unrelated to the background training speech.”
BackgroundAssessing the impact of attention fluctuations on statistical learning
Zhang, Z., & Rosenberg, M. D. (2023) · Attention Perception & Psychophysics · doi:10.3758/s13414-023-02805-2 · Cited by 4
“…learning has been demonstrated in multiple sensory modalities including vision (e.g., Fiser & Aslin, 2002; Turk-Browne et al., 2005), audition (Conway & Christiansen, 2005; 2006), and language learning (Saffran et al., 1997), and has been observed across developmental stages (Krogh et al., 2013).”
Nathaniel, U., Eidelsztein, S., Geskin, K. G., Yamasaki, B. L., Nir, B., Dronjic, V., Booth, J. R., & Bitan, T. (2024) · Neurobiology of Language · doi:10.1162/nol_a_00150 · Cited by 5
“This interpretation is supported by behavioural findings from statistical learning paradigms, which require parsing of speech streams into words, and showed that non-adjacent dependencies are harder to learn compared to adjacent dependencies (Saffran et al., 1997; Sandoval & Gómez, 2013).”
ResultWord segmentation of ancient Tamil text extracted from inscriptions
Sandeep, S., Sanjith, S., & Sudarsan, B. (2025) · npj Heritage Science · doi:10.1038/s40494-025-01612-2 · Cited by 4
“Inthecontext of word segmentation, the authors applied PARSER to demonstrate that infants can segment speech without relying on prosodic or phonological cues, as shown in studies by Saffran et al. 11 This suggests that implicit learning mechanisms, as modeled by PARSER, play a crucial role in early language acquisitio…”
Insights from studying statistical learning
Frost, R. L. A., & Padraic Monaghan, B. (2020) · Trends in language acquisition research · doi:10.1075/tilar.27.03fro · Cited by 6
Frost, R., Dunn, K., Christiansen, M. H., Gómez, R., & Monaghan, P. (2020) · PLoS ONE · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0243436 · Cited by 4
Phonetic Effects in Child and Adult Word Segmentation.
Katz, J., & Moore, M. W. (2021) · Journal of Speech, Language and Hearing Research · doi:10.1044/2020_jslhr-19-00275 · Cited by 3
“Most of the earlier studies in this age group, which tended to produce larger and/or more robust learning effects, were based on the same set of six words and 36 two-alternative forced-choice trials as the original studies by Saffran et al. (1997).”
InfluentialThe dynamics of multiword sequence extraction
Arata, L. P., Magro, L. O., Ramisch, C., Jonathan Grainger, B., & Rey, A. (2024) · Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology · doi:10.1177/17470218241228548 · Cited by 4
“In the past decades, research has mainly focused on isolated word learning (Pelucchi et al., 2009; Perruchet & Vinter, 1998; Saffran et al., 1996, 1997), leaving aside the question of how multiword sequences are acquired in real time.”
Language diversity and bilingual processing
Athanasopoulos, P., & Treffers‐Daller, J. (2015) · International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism · doi:10.1080/13670050.2015.1027141 · Cited by 4
Phonetic acquisition in cortical dynamics, a computational approach
Demattíes, D., Rizzi, S., Thiruvathukal, G. K., Wainselboim, A. J., & Zanutto, B. S. (2019) · PLoS ONE · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0217966 · Cited by 4
Conditional probability modulates visual search efficiency
Cort, B., & Anderson, B. (2013) · Frontiers in Human Neuroscience · doi:10.3389/fnhum.2013.00683 · Cited by 4
The other kind of perceptual learning
Fiser, J. (2009) · Learning & Perception · doi:10.1556/lp.1.2009.1.6 · Cited by 4
“Statistical learning was first also introduced in the domain of language acquisition (Saffran, Aslin and Newport, 1996; Saffran et al., 1997).”
BackgroundMimicking Infants’ Early Language Experience Does Not Improve Adult Learning Outcomes
Kam, C. L. H. (2017) · Language Learning and Development · doi:10.1080/15475441.2017.1324309 · Cited by 3
The brightness dimension as a marker of gender across cultures and age
Sebastián‐Enesco, C., & Semin, G. R. (2019) · Psychological Research · doi:10.1007/s00426-019-01213-2 · Cited by 6
A learning-based account of local phonological processes
Belth, C. (2023) · Phonology · doi:10.1017/s0952675724000083 · Cited by 3
“Saffran et al. (1996, 1997) and Aslin et al. (1998) found infants as young as 8-months old to be sensitive to dependencies between adjacent elements, but Santelmann & Jusczyk (1998) found that even at 15-months-old, children did not track dependencies between non-adjacent elements.”
BackgroundSchwartz, N., Bogaerts, L., Loyfer, Y., et al. (2026) · Cognition · doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2026.106512 · Cited by 3
Liu, J., Fan, T., Chen, Y., & Zhao, J. (2023) · npj Science of Learning · doi:10.1038/s41539-023-00209-3 · Cited by 5
Lador-Weizman, Y., & Deutsch, A. (2024) · Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology · doi:10.1177/17470218241229721 · Cited by 2
“These TPs serve as cues for word segmentation, modelling how words are understood to be extracted from continuous speech (Adriaans & Kager, 2010; Erickson & Thiessen, 2015; Saffran et al., 1996, 1997).”
Statistical learning across cognitive and affective domains: a multidimensional review
Wang, Y., Lu, L., & Wu, M. (2025) · Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience · doi:10.3389/fnint.2025.1460471 · Cited by 5
“For instance, Saffran et al. (2006) found no significant differences in auditory statistical learning between six-year-olds and adults, suggesting early maturation in this domain.”
Han, W., & Yim, D.-S. (2016) · Eon'eo cheong'gag jang'ae yeon'gu/Communication sciences & disorders · doi:10.12963/csd.16340 · Cited by 3
Tariana, an Arawak Language from North-West Amazonia
Aikhenvald, A. Y. (2017) · Oxford University Press eBooks · doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199683208.013.41 · Cited by 3
Foley, W. A. (2017) · Oxford University Press eBooks · doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199683208.013.20 · Cited by 3
Yim, D., & Yang, Y. (2021) · Eon'eo cheong'gag jang'ae yeon'gu/Communication sciences & disorders · doi:10.12963/csd.21804 · Cited by 3
Yu, X., Hoey, T. V., Tan, F. L., et al. (2024) · Linguistics Vanguard · doi:10.1515/lingvan-2023-0050 · Cited by 3
Neural tracking of auditory statistical regularities in adults with and without dyslexia
Ringer, H., Sammler, D., & Daikoku, T. (2025) · Cerebral Cortex · doi:10.1093/cercor/bhaf042 · Cited by 7
“The statistical learning paradigm has yielded robust results in children (Saffran et al. 1997), infants (Saffran et al. 1996), and even neonates (Teinonen et al. 2009), and here we show that neural correlates of statistical learning of non-linguistic auditory stimuli are related to participants’…”
Kleinert, K. L. (2018) · ProQuest LLC eBooks · doi:10.7916/d8zg8871 · Cited by 3
Modeling the Influence of Language Input Statistics on Children's Speech Production
Roete, I., Frank, S. L., Fikkert, P., & Casillas, M. (2020) · Cognitive Science · doi:10.1111/cogs.12924 · Cited by 4
“Our primary research question (as raised by, e.g., Arciuli & Simpson, 2011; Raviv & Arnon, 2018; Saffran et al., 1997; Shufaniya & Arnon, 2018) was whether the CBL would change in its ability to reconstruct children’s speech productions throughout development.”
BackgroundHow Experiences with Words Supply All the Tools in the Toddler’s Word-Learning Toolbox
Houston‐Price, C., & Law, B. (2013) · IGI Global eBooks · doi:10.4018/978-1-4666-2973-8.ch004 · Cited by 3
Fernandes, T., Ventura, P., & Kolinsky, R. (2011) · Journal of Portuguese Linguistics · doi:10.5334/jpl.102 · Cited by 2
Short and long term representation of an unfamiliar tone distribution
Cui, A., Diercks, C., Troje, N. F., & Cuddy, L. L. (2016) · PeerJ · doi:10.7717/peerj.2399 · Cited by 3
“’’ The basic procedure used in statistical learning research is very similar, if not to say identical, to the procedure used in implicit learning research: Participants are exposed to a stimulus set based on certain regularities and afterwards tested on their reaction to–sometimes new–stimuli based on the same regular…”
BackgroundMethodCognition of stability in atonal music in teenagers with no musical experience.
Esteve-Faubel, J.-M., Francés-Luna, B., Stephens, J., et al. (2016) · Psychomusicology Music Mind and Brain · doi:10.1037/pmu0000133 · Cited by 3
Auditory and Visual Contributions to Multisensory Integration.
Parker, J., & Robinson, C. W. (2017) · eScholarship (California Digital Library) · Cited by 3
Metadata
- Authors
- Saffran, J. R., Newport, E. L., Aslin, R. N., Tunick, R. A., & Barrueco, S.
- Affiliations
- University of Rochester (US)
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, University of Rochester
- United States Department of Veterans Affairs (US)
- University of Denver (US)
- Corresponding author
- Saffran, Jenny R.
- Venue
- Psychological Science
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 1997-03
- Volume
- 8
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 101-105
- ISSN
- 0956-7976 (ISSN-L)
- 1467-9280
- OpenAlex
- W2083195749
- Semantic Scholar
- 317b15f1ad52306f877f2a28cb99f1912dc17454
- Cited by
- 675
- References
- 44
- Citations by year
- 2026: 14 · 2025: 18 · 2024: 27 · 2023: 33 · 2022: 25 · 2021: 31 · 2020: 36 · 2019: 26 · 2018: 26 · 2017: 76 · 2016: 32 · 2015: 40 · 2014: 37 · 2013: 28 · 2012: 32
- FWCI
- 10.93
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Psychological Science (publishedVersion)
- 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
- incidental language learning, word segmentation, connected speech, artificial languages, transition probabilities, statistical learning, auditory learning, children versus adults, first grade students, syllable boundaries
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