转换概率对语音统计学习效应的独立影响

In a typical SL task, participants are first exposed to a nonsensical artificial language for 5~10 mins and then asked to finish a 2 alternative forced choice task (2AFC). If the accuracy across participants is higher than chance level, it is assumed that learning has occurred. However, studies have also shown that factors other than TPs, such as word token frequency, also impact SL performance in such tasks. To date, these factors as well as their interactive effects remain under studied.In this experiment we aimed to investigate whether TPs affect SL learning performance when controlling for target words and partwords token frequencies. In doing so, we created the artificial language by randomizing the order of two trisyllabic words and two disyllabic words. During the 2AFC task, three types of items (target word, partword, and nonword) were paired together, with two items in equal length in each trial. There were 24 trials in the test. 40 native Mandarin monolinguals participated in the experiment; they first listened to the artificial language for 5mins and then finished the 2AFC task.To investigate the independent effect of TP in SL, we subset the data by word length and found that participants accuracy choosing trisyllabic target words over partwords was marginally lower than their choosing disyllabic target words over partword, which suggests that disyllabic words confer advantage in SL for this group of participants. In addition, participants accuracy in choosing trisyllabic partwords over nonwords was significantly higher than that of disyllabic target partwords over nonwords.A series of results across two behavior experiments highlight the unique contribution from TPs alone, since accuracy was assessed by controlling for word token frequency and word length. Thus, the present study suggests that TP exerts effect on verbal SL performance independent of word token frequency.