Statistical Learning of Language: A Meta‐Analysis Into 25 Years of Research

Statistical learning is a key concept in our understanding of language acquisition. Ample work has highlighted its role in numerous linguistic functions—yet statistical learning is not a unitary construct, and its consistency across different language properties remains unclear. In a meta‐analysis o...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Cognitive science 2022-09, Vol.46 (9), p.n/a
Main Authors: Isbilen, Erin S., Christiansen, Morten H.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adults
Auditory discrimination learning
Auditory Stimuli
Auditory‐linguistic statistical learning
Bayesian analysis
Children
Concept learning
Cross‐situational learning
Cues
Effect Size
Factor Analysis
Infants
Language
Language Acquisition
Linguistics
Meta Analysis
Native language acquisition
Probability
Research Methodology
Role
Simplified language
Statistical learning
Statistics
Syllables
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Summary:Statistical learning is a key concept in our understanding of language acquisition. Ample work has highlighted its role in numerous linguistic functions—yet statistical learning is not a unitary construct, and its consistency across different language properties remains unclear. In a meta‐analysis of auditory‐linguistic statistical learning research spanning the last 25 years, we evaluated how learning varies across different language properties in infants, children, and adults and surveyed the methodological trends in the literature. We found robust learning across stimuli (syllables, words, etc.) in infants, and across stimuli and structures (adjacent dependencies, non‐adjacent dependencies, etc.) in adults, with larger effect sizes when multiple cues were present. However, the analysis also showed significant publication bias and revealed a tendency toward using a narrow range of simplified language properties, including in the strength of the transitional probabilities used during training. Bayes factor analyses revealed prevalent data insensitivity of moderators commonly hypothesized to impact learning, such as the amount of exposure and transitional probability strength, which contradict core theoretical assumptions in the field. Methodological factors, such as the tasks used at test, also significantly impacted effect sizes in adults and children, suggesting that choice of task may critically constrain current theories of how statistical learning operates. Collectively, our results suggest that auditory‐linguistic statistical learning has the kind of robustness needed to play a foundational role in language acquisition, but that more research is warranted to reveal its full potential.
ISSN:0364-0213
1551-6709
DOI:10.1111/cogs.13198