Less is more in language learning

Abstract

It is well-established that children are better at learning language than adults, though the reasons for this difference are hotly debated. A capacity-based explanation (first put forward as the ‘less is more’ hypothesis1xConstraints on learning and their role in language acquisition: studies of the acquisition of American Sign Language. Newport, E.L. Lang. Sci. 1988; 10: 147–172Crossref | Scopus (89)See all References) argues that children’s early processing limitations in attention and memory actually facilitate language learning, by forcing children to analyze the smaller, componential parts of language. One prediction of this account is that adult language learning would improve if adults’ processing capacities were diminished. In recent experiments reported by Cochran and colleagues2xToo smart for their own good: the disadvantage of a superior processing capacity for adult language learners. Cochran, B.P., McDonald, J.L., and Perrault, S.J. J. Mem. Lang. 1999; 41: 30–58Crossref | Scopus (26)See all References adults were asked to learn a fragment of American Sign Language (ASL). Half of the subjects also simultaneously performed a tone-counting task (the ‘tone’ group), which was intended to take away processing resources from the language-learning task. In the test phase, all subjects were asked to produce ASL sentences, some of which were identical to the training sentences with others being novel combinations of the elements presented during training. Results showed that the group who did not do the simultaneous counting task (‘no-tone’) performed much better than the ‘tone’ group in producing items identical to the training set, but this advantage disappeared with novel combinations. More interesting was the difference between the patterns of errors of the two groups. Those of the ‘no-tone’ group stemmed from a reliance on frozen forms and false analogies (in the form of agreement reversals) while the tone group’s errors stemmed largely from omitted agreement forms. That is, the increased processing load of the ‘tone’ group led to behavioral characteristics of child language learners – this suggests that children’s superior language-acquisition skills might indeed depend, paradoxically, on their inferior processing capacity.