Abstract
Both adjacent and non-adjacent dependencies (AD and NAD) are present in natural language and other domains, yet the learning of non-adjacent sequential dependencies generally only occurs under favorable circumstances. It is currently unknown to what extent adults can learn AD and NAD, presented concurrently in spatial and verbal sequences during a single session, and whether a second session improves performance. In addition, the relationship between AD and NAD learning and other theoretically related cognitive and language processes has not yet been fully established. In this study, participants reproduced two types of sequences generated from an artificial grammar: visuo-spatial sequences with stimuli presented in four spatial locations, and visuo-verbal sequences with printed syllables. Participants were tested for incidental learning by reproducing novel sequences, half consistent with the grammar and half containing violations of either AD or NAD. The procedure was repeated on a second day. Results showed that both AD and NAD were learned in both visuo-spatial and visuo-verbal tasks, although AD learning was better than NAD and learning of NAD decreased over time. Furthermore, NAD learning for both spatial and verbal tasks was positively correlated with a language measure, whereas AD learning for both spatial and verbal tasks was negatively associated with working memory measures in the opposite domain. These results demonstrate that adults can learn both AD and NAD within a single session, but NAD learning is more easily disrupted than AD and both types of learning are sub-served by partially distinct cognitive processes. These findings increase our understanding of the processes governing the learning of AD and NAD in verbal and spatial domains.
Highlights
Patterns are a ubiquitous part of life, present all around us in such diverse perception and action domains such as language, music, motor sequencing, visuo-spatial perception, and navigation
Adults appear capable of learning adjacent dependencies (AD) and non-adjacent dependencies (NAD) concurrently within the same sequence in both visuo-spatial and visuo-verbal domains with only a single, brief exposure session, even when NAD are not highlighted and when AD and NAD are composed of the same elements
Levels of learning were better overall for AD relative to NAD, though there was no difference in levels of learning between the visuo-spatial and visuo-verbal tasks
Summary
Patterns are a ubiquitous part of life, present all around us in such diverse perception and action domains such as language, music, motor sequencing, visuo-spatial perception, and navigation. Learning the successive motor patterns of a pitcher may lead a batter to predict the particular trajectory that the ball will take; recognizing the relationship between hearing particular animal calls and the appearance of a predator may allow for avoidance of that predator; and identifying grammatical and semantic dependencies between words and morphemes in a hierarchically arranged sentence may allow the listener to predict subsequent words and keep track of the meaning of the sentence without being distracted by incorrect expectancies In each of these examples, there may be both adjacent dependencies (AD), that allow for prediction of immediately following items, and non-adjacent dependencies (NAD), that allow for prediction of more distally following items. This is because it may not be possible to separate the two types of dependencies in these real-world situations (e.g., in natural language, any given sentence can contain both AD and NAD simultaneously)
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