Abstract
Previous research in cross-situational statistical learning has established that people can track statistical information across streams in order to map nonce words to their referent objects (Yu and Smith, 2007). Under some circumstances, learners are able to acquire multiple mappings for a single object (e.g., Yurovsky and Yu, 2008). Here we explore whether having a contextual cue associated with a new mapping may facilitate this process, or the conscious awareness of learning. Using a cross-situational statistical learning paradigm, in which learners could form both 1:1 and 2:1 word–object mappings over two phases of learning, we collected confidence ratings during familiarization and provided a retrospective test to gage learning. In Condition 1, there were no contextual cues to indicate a change in mappings (baseline). Conditions 2 and 3 added contextual cues (a change in speaker voice or explicit instructions, respectively) to the second familiarization phase to determine their effects on the trajectory of learning. While contextual cues did not facilitate acquisition of 2:1 mappings as assessed by retrospective measures, confidence ratings for these mappings were significantly higher in contextual cue conditions compared to the baseline condition with no cues. These results suggest that contextual cues corresponding to changes in the input may influence the conscious awareness of learning.
Highlights
One of the difficulties faced by language learners is mapping words to objects
We found that participants were able to acquire both 1:1 and 2:1 mappings at above chance levels in the retrospective tests, and that performance on these two types of mappings did not differ statistically
While contextual cues did not impact the overall level of performance on the retrospective task, they did exert an influence on the confidence ratings reported by learners during familiarization
Summary
One of the difficulties faced by language learners is mapping words to objects. The word–world mapping problem poses a significant challenge for learners because there are often a near infinite number of possible objects that can be considered for a given word (Quine, 1960; Hart and Risley, 1995). Many theories suggest that learners are constrained in the types of referents they will consider in a single learning environment. The mutual exclusivity constraint suggests that learners prefer to assign a single label to an object. There are a host of other constraints that have been posited, such as the whole-object bias (Markman, 1991), the Principle of Contrast (Clark, 1983), social-pragmatic constraints (Clark, 1987; Tomasello and Barton, 1994; Baron-Cohen, 1997; Diesendruck and Markson, 2001), as well as linguistic cues (Gleitman, 1990), and the Novel-Name-Nameless-Category Principle (Golinkoff et al, 1992), among others
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