Home > Research > Publications & Outputs > Consistent and cumulative effects of syntactic ...

Text available via DOI:

View graph of relations

Consistent and cumulative effects of syntactic experience in children’s sentence production: Evidence for error-based implicit learning

Research output: Contribution to Journal/MagazineJournal articlepeer-review

Published
<mark>Journal publication date</mark>26/09/2016
<mark>Journal</mark>Cognition
Volume157
Pages (from-to)250-256
Publication StatusPublished
<mark>Original language</mark>English

Abstract

Error-based implicit learning models (e.g., Chang, Dell, & Bock, 2006) propose that a single learning mechanism underlies immediate and long-term effects of experience on children’s syntax. We test two key predictions of these models: That individual experiences of infrequent structures should yield both immediate and long-term facilitation, and that such learning should be consistent in individual speakers across time. Children (and adults) described transitive events in two picture-matching games, held a week apart. In both sessions, the experimenter’s immediately preceding syntax (active vs. passive) dynamically influenced children’s (and adults’) syntactic choices in an individually consistent manner. Moreover, children showed long-term facilitation, through an increased likelihood to produce passives in Session 2, with speakers who were most likely to immediately repeat passives in Session 1 being most likely to produce passives in Session 2. Our results are consistent with an error-based syntactic learning mechanism that operates across the lifespan.