scholarly journals The procedural learning deficit hypothesis of language learning disorders: we see some problems

2017 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. e12552 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gillian West ◽  
Miguel A. Vadillo ◽  
David R. Shanks ◽  
Charles Hulme
2019 ◽  
Vol 62 (10) ◽  
pp. 3790-3807 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Ferman ◽  
Liat Kishon-Rabin ◽  
Hila Ganot-Budaga ◽  
Avi Karni

Purpose The purpose of this study was to delineate differences between children with specific language impairment (SLI), typical age–matched (TAM) children, and typical younger (TY) children in learning and mastering an undisclosed artificial morphological rule (AMR) through exposure and usage. Method Twenty-six participants (eight 10-year-old children with SLI, 8 TAM children, and ten 8-year-old TY children) were trained to master an AMR across multiple training sessions. The AMR required a phonological transformation of verbs depending on a semantic distinction: whether the preceding noun was animate or inanimate. All participants practiced the application of the AMR to repeated and new (generalization) items, via judgment and production tasks. Results The children with SLI derived significantly less benefit from practice than their peers in learning most aspects of the AMR, even exhibiting smaller gains compared to the TY group in some aspects. Children with SLI benefited less than TAM and even TY children from training to judge and produce repeated items of the AMR. Nevertheless, despite a significant disadvantage in baseline performance, the rate at which they mastered the task-specific phonological regularities was as robust as that of their peers. On the other hand, like 8-year-olds, only half of the SLI group succeeded in uncovering the nature of the AMR and, consequently, in generalizing it to new items. Conclusions Children with SLI were able to learn language aspects that rely on implicit, procedural learning, but experienced difficulties in learning aspects that relied on the explicit uncovering of the semantic principle of the AMR. The results suggest that some of the difficulties experienced by children with SLI when learning a complex language regularity cannot be accounted for by a broad, language-related, procedural memory disability. Rather, a deficit—perhaps a developmental delay in the ability to recruit and solve language problems and establish explicit knowledge regarding a language task—can better explain their difficulties in language learning.


2020 ◽  
Vol 75 (3) ◽  
pp. 477-491
Author(s):  
Kiss Mariann ◽  
Németh Dezső ◽  
Janacsek Karolina

A hétköznapok során gyakran előfordul, hogy gyengén teljesítünk egy olyan helyzetben, amelyben korábban már bizonyítottuk tudásunkat. A pszichológián belül elméleti és empirikus eredmények is alátámasztják ezt a hétköznapi jelenséget, mely szerint egy adott időpontban mérhető teljesítmény (performancia) nem feltétlenül tükrözi hűen a mögötte álló tudást (kompetencia). Jelen rövid, célzott összefoglaló tanulmánnyal az a célunk, hogy felhívjuk a fi gyelmet a performancia-kompetencia disszociációra a procedurális tanulás területét használva példaként. Fontos azonban kiemelni, hogy ez a jelenség más kognitív funkciók esetén is jelen lehet (pl. nyelvi teljesítmény, döntéshozatal, észlelés), ezért tanulmányunk új kutatásokat ösztönözhet számos kognitív funkció esetén. A korábbi empirikus eredmények áttekintésekor külön hangsúlyt fektetünk a tanulás idői faktoraira, amelyek meghatározhatják, hogy disszociáció lép-e fel adott esetben a performancia és kompetencia között vagy nem. Ezután kitérünk azokra az elméleti magyarázatokra is, amelyek az idői faktorok tanulásra, illetve performancia-kompetencia disszociációra kifejtett hatását próbálják magyarázni. A tanulmány végén kitekintést nyújtunk a disszociáció kutatásmódszertani vonatkozásaira és olyan alkalmazott helyzetekre is, ahol ez a disszociáció jelentősen befolyásolhatja a levont következtetéseket: ilyen például az oktatási-tanulási környezet (készségtanulás, nyelvtanulás), illetve a kognitív tesztek használata a klinikai diagnosztikában. It often occurs in our daily life that we perform weaker in a task in which we have previously shown good knowledge and understanding. In psychology, both theoretical and empirical evidence supports this phenomenon: that is, on certain occasions, our momentary performance does not accurately refl ect our underlying knowledge (competence). The aim of our short, focused review paper is to draw attention to this performance vs. competence dissociation using the fi eld of procedural learning as an example. It is important to note, however, that this phenomenon may occur for a wide range of cognitive functions (e.g., aspects of language performance, decision-making, perception), and therefore, our paper can stimulate research in these areas. In this paper, we review previous empirical fi ndings that focused on the role of temporal factors in procedural learning as these factors can affect whether or not dissociation occurs in a certain case. Then, we briefl y present the explanatory accounts of the role of the temporal factors in learning and in performance vs. competence dissociation. Finally, our review discusses the implications of the presented fi ndings both from a methodological and an applied perspective, highlighting that the dissociation between performance and competence can substantially alter the outcomes and our interpretations in various situations such as in education (e.g., skill learning, language learning) and when applying cognitive tests in clinical settings.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diana Pili-Moss

Recent neurocognitive models of second language learning have posited specific roles for declarative and procedural memory in the processing of novel linguistic stimuli. Pursuing this line of investigation, the present study examined the role of declarative and procedural memory abilities in the early stages of adult comprehension of sentences in a miniature language with natural language characteristics (BrocantoJ). Thirty-six native Italian young adults were aurally exposed to BrocantoJ in the context of a computer game over three sessions on consecutive days. Following vocabulary training and passive exposure, participants were asked to perform game moves described by aural sentences in the language. Game trials differed with respect to the information the visual context offered. In part of the trials processing of relationships between grammatical properties of the language (word order and morphological case marking) and noun semantics (thematic role) was necessary in order reach an accurate outcome, whereas in others nongrammatical contextual cues were sufficient. Declarative and procedural learning abilities were respectively indexed by visual and verbal declarative memory measures and by a measure of visual implicit sequence learning. Overall, the results indicated a substantial role of declarative learning ability in the early stages of sentence comprehension, thus confirming theoretical predictions and the findings of previous similar studies in miniature artificial language paradigms. However, for trials that specifically probed the learning of relationships between morphosyntax and semantics, a positive interaction between declarative and procedural learning ability also emerged, indicating the cooperative engagement of both types of learning abilities in the processing of relationships between ruled-based grammar and interpretation in the early stages of exposure to a new language in adults.


2001 ◽  
Vol 39 (7) ◽  
pp. 665-677 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefano Vicari ◽  
Samantha Bellucci ◽  
Giovanni Augusto Carlesimo

2011 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 336-343 ◽  
Author(s):  
Audrey Gabriel ◽  
Christelle Maillart ◽  
Melody Guillaume ◽  
Nicolas Stefaniak ◽  
Thierry Meulemans

AbstractRecent studies on specific language impairment (SLI) have suggested that language deficits are directly associated with poor procedural learning abilities. Findings from our previous work are contrary to this hypothesis; we found that children with SLI were able to learn eight-element-long sequences as fast and as accurately as children with normal language (NL) on a serial reaction time (SRT) task. A probabilistic rather than a deterministic SRT paradigm was used in the current study to explore procedural learning in children with SLI to mimic real conditions of language learning. Fifteen children with or without SLI were compared on an SRT task including a probabilistic eight-element-long sequence. Results show that children with SLI were able to learn this sequence as fast and as accurately as children with NL, and that similar sequence-specific learning was observed in both groups. These results are novel and suggest that children with SLI do not display global procedural system deficits. (JINS, 2011, 17, 336–343)


1995 ◽  
Vol 33 (5) ◽  
pp. 577-593 ◽  
Author(s):  
Georgina M. Jackson ◽  
Stephen R. Jackson ◽  
John Harrison ◽  
Leslie Henderson ◽  
Christopher Kennard

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