Implicit learning as a mechanism of change in language production
Year: 2017
Type: article
Abstract: Event Abstract Back to Event Implicit learning as a mechanism of change in language production Gary S. Dell1*, Nathaniel D. Anderson1 and Amanda C. Kelley1 1 University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, United States The mature language production system is less changeable than the comprehension system. For example, one can learn to process an unfamiliar accent more easily than one can learn to produce it. Production can, though, be altered through experience. This alteration is a form of implicit learning, the learning that arises from performing a task without any intention to learn. A number of production phenomena have been attributed to implicit learning, including structural priming, cumulative semantic interference, phonotactic learning, and changes in the associations between verbs and the syntactic structures that they participate in. We discuss data from some of these domains that reveal general mechanisms of implicit learning in production and hence are informative about remediation of production deficits. Our studies use a technique called reversal shift, an experimental method that goes back to the early days of psychology. Psychology has long emphasized the associative nature of learning—that experience leaves its mark on an organism by gradually strengthening or weakening links among co-occurring stimuli and responses. The acquisition of such associations was attributed to neural mechanisms sufficiently general that they could apply as well to a child learning her native language as to a cockroach learning a T-maze. Such simple views, however, do not easily explain much of human learning, particularly the learning of language. Pure associative learning—the kind that one imagines is done by cockroaches—must be augmented by cognitive learning mechanisms. While associative learning consists of gradual and automatic modifications of neural links as an organism performs a task, cognitive learning appeals to the role of effort, attention, awareness, insight, or verbal mediation, and proposes that the outcome of learning may be a symbolic rule, that is, a statement in a mental formal system such as IF LIGHT=RED, THEN STOP, or IF TENSE=PAST, APPEND /d/. Reversal shift was a method that could, in principle, distinguish whether learning is purely associative or cognitive. In original demonstrations of this method, animals learn that responding to one stimulus, say, a display of vertical lines, leads to reward, while responding to another, horizontal lines, leads to punishment. After this discrimination is learned, the task reverses, with the vertical lines associated with the punishment and the horizontal lines with reward. The psychologists of the 1930s hypothesized that, if learning were purely associative, the reversal should take longer to learn than the original learning because the associations between each stimulus and its reward have to be unlearned before the new reversed associations could be acquired. It turns out that, in some cases, slow reversal is found, while in other cases (e.g. concept learning by humans), learning the reversed mapping is faster than learning the original one (Cantwell et al., 2015). We discuss whether reversal shift in production tasks is learned quickly or slowly and, hence, whether the learning mechanisms are associative or cognitive. Knowing the mechanism, in turn, tells us how best to bring about change in the system. Acknowledgements Supported by NIH R01 HD 086099. References Cantwell, G., Crossley, M.J., & Ashby, F.G. (2015). Multiple stages of learning in perceptual categorization: evidence and neurocomputational theory. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 22, 1598-1613. Keywords: implicit learning, Aphasia, phonotactics, Reversal Learning, error based learning Conference: Academy of Aphasia 55th Annual Meeting , Baltimore, United States, 5 Nov - 7 Nov, 2017. Presentation Type: symposium Topic: Consider for student award Citation: Dell GS, Anderson ND and Kelley AC (2019). Implicit learning as a mechanism of change in language production. Conference Abstract: Academy of Aphasia 55th Annual Meeting . doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2017.223.00052 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 21 Apr 2017; Published Online: 25 Jan 2019. * Correspondence: Prof. Gary S Dell, University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, CHampaign, Illinois, 61820, United States, [email protected] Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Gary S Dell Nathaniel D Anderson Amanda C Kelley Google Gary S Dell Nathaniel D Anderson Amanda C Kelley Google Scholar Gary S Dell Nathaniel D Anderson Amanda C Kelley PubMed Gary S Dell Nathaniel D Anderson Amanda C Kelley Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.
Source: Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
Authors: Gary Dell, Nathaniel Anderson, Amanda Kelley
Language: English
Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience
Field: Neuroscience
Domain: Life Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $3,801
OpenAlex ID: W2914639103