Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-7cvxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-28T05:10:47.947Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

LEARNING WITHOUT AWARENESS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 June 2005

John N. Williams
John N. Williams
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Two experiments examined the learning of form-meaning connections under conditions where the relevant forms were noticed but the critical aspects of meaning were not. Miniature noun class systems were employed, and the participants were told that the choice of determiner in noun phrases depended on whether the object was “near” or “far” from the subject of the sentence. What they were not told was that the choice of determiner also depended on the animacy of the noun. Most participants remained unaware of this correlation during the training and test tasks; yet when faced with a choice between two determiners for a noun, they chose the one that was appropriate to the noun's animacy at significantly above-chance levels, even though that combination had never been encountered during training. This ability to generalize provided evidence of learning form-meaning connections without awareness. In both experiments, there was a correlation between generalization test performance and knowledge of languages that encode grammatical gender. This points to the importance of prior knowledge in implicit learning.Many thanks to Ronald Leow, Daphnée Simard, and the anonymous SSLA reviewers for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this article.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Second Language Acquisition , Volume 27 , Issue 2 , June 2005 , pp. 269 - 304
Copyright
© 2005 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Block, N. (2001). Paradox and cross purposes in recent work on consciousness. Cognition, 79, 197–219.Google Scholar
Braine, M. D. S., Brody, R. E., Brooks, P. D., Sudhalter, V., Ross, J. E., Catalano, L., & Fisch, S. M. (1990). Exploring language acquisition in children with a miniature artificial language: Effects of item and pattern frequency, arbitrary subclasses, and correction. Journal of Memory and Language, 29, 591–610.Google Scholar
Brooks, P. J., Braine, M. D. S., Catalano, L., & Brody, R. (1993). Acquisition of gender-like noun classes in an artificial language: The contribution of phonological markers to learning. Journal of Memory and Language, 32, 76–95.Google Scholar
Carr, T. H., & Curran, T. (1994). Cognitive factors in learning about structured sequences. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 16, 205–230.Google Scholar
Cowan, N. (1999). An embedded-processes model of working memory. In A. Miyake & P. Shah (Eds.), Models of working memory: Mechanisms of active maintenance and executive control (pp. 62–101). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Dehaene, S., & Naccache, L. (2001). Towards a cognitive neuroscience of consciousness: Basic evidence and a workspace framework. Cognition, 79, 1–37.Google Scholar
DeKeyser, R. M. (1995). Learning second language grammar rules: An experiment with a miniature linguistic system. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 17, 379–410.Google Scholar
Doughty, C., & Williams, J. (1998). Pedagogical choices in focus on form. In C. Doughty & J. Williams (Eds.), Focus on form in classroom second language acquisition (pp. 197–261). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Ellis, N. C. (1994). Vocabulary acquisition: The explicit ins and outs of explicit cognitive mediation. In N. C. Ellis (Ed.), Implicit and explicit learning of languages (pp. 211–282). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
Frensch, P. A., Wenke, D., & Runger, D. (1999). A secondary tone-counting task suppresses expression of knowledge in the serial reaction task. Journal of Experimental Psychology-Learning Memory and Cognition, 25, 260–274.Google Scholar
Frigo, L., & McDonald, J. L. (1998). Properties of phonological markers that affect the acquisition of gender-like subclasses. Journal of Memory and Language, 39, 218–245.Google Scholar
Gabrieli, J. D. E., Cohen, N. J., & Corkin, S. (1988). The impaired learning of semantic knowledge following medial temporal lobe resection. Brain & Cognition, 7, 157–177.Google Scholar
Goshen-Gottstein, Y., & Moscovitch, M. (1995). Repetition priming effects for newly formed associations are perceptually based: Evidence from shallow encoding and format specificity. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 21, 1249–1262.Google Scholar
Gupta, P., & Dell, G. S. (1999). The emergence of language from serial order and procedural memory. In B. MacWhinney (Ed.), The emergence of language (pp. 447–481). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Hauser, M. D., Newport, E. L., & Aslin, R. N. (2001). Segmentation of the speech stream in a non-human primate: Statistical learning in cotton-top tamarins. Cognition, 78, B53–B64.Google Scholar
Hirst, W., Phelps, E. A., Johnson, M. K., & Volpe, B. T. (1988). Amnesia and second language learning. Brain and Cognition, 8, 105–116.Google Scholar
Holmes, V. M., & Dejean de la Batie, B. (1999). Assignment of grammatical gender by native speakers and foreign language learners. Applied Psycholinguistics, 20, 479–506.Google Scholar
Jiménez, L., & Méndez, C. (1999). Which attention is needed for implicit sequence learning? Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 25, 236–259.Google Scholar
Kintsch, W. (1988). The role of knowledge in discourse comprehension: A construction-integration model. Psychological Review, 95, 163–182.Google Scholar
Kitchener, E. G., Hodges, J. R., & McCarthy, R. (1998). Acquisition of post-morbid vocabulary and semantic facts in the absence of episodic memory. Brain, 121, 1313–1327.Google Scholar
Knowlton, B. J., & Squire, L. R. (1996). Artificial grammar learning depends on implicit acquisition of both abstract and exemplar-specific information. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 22, 169–181.Google Scholar
Lamme, V. A. F. (2003). Why visual attention and awareness are different. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 7, 12–18.Google Scholar
Leow, R. P. (1997). Attention, awareness, and foreign language behavior. Language Learning, 47, 467–505.Google Scholar
Leow, R. P. (2000). A study of the role of awareness in foreign language behavior. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 22, 557–584.Google Scholar
Logan, G. D., & Etherton, J. L. (1994). What is learned during automatization? The role of attention in constructing an instance. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition, 20, 1022–1050.Google Scholar
Marchman, V. A., & Bates, E. (1994). Continuity in lexical and morphological development: A test of the critical mass hypothesis. Journal of Child Language, 21, 339–366.Google Scholar
Mathews, R. C., Buss, R. R., Stanley, W. B., Blanchard-Fields, F., Cho, J.-R., & Druhan, B. (1989). The role of implicit and explicit processes in learning from examples: A synergistic effect. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 15, 1083–1100.Google Scholar
McClelland, J., & Rumelhart, D. (1985). Distributed memory and the representation of general and specific information. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 114, 159–188.Google Scholar
Merikle, P. M., Smilek, D., & Eastwood, J. D. (2001). Perception without awareness: Perspectives from cognitive psychology. Cognition, 79, 115–134.Google Scholar
Merriman, W. E. (1999). Competition, attention, and young children's lexical processing. In B. MacWhinney (Ed.), The emergence of language (pp. 331–358). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Reber, A. S. (1976). Implicit learning of synthetic languages: The role of instructional set. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Learning and Memory, 2, 88–94.Google Scholar
Robinson, B. F., & Mervis, C. B. (1998). Disentangling early language development: Modeling lexical and grammatical acquisition using an extension of a case-study methodology. Developmental Psychology, 34, 363–375.Google Scholar
Robinson, P. (1995). Attention, memory, and the “noticing” hypothesis. Language Learning, 45, 283–331.Google Scholar
Rosa, E., & Leow, R. P. (2004). Awareness, different learning conditions, and second language development. Applied Psycholinguistics, 25, 269–292.Google Scholar
Saffran, J. R., Newport, E. L., & Aslin, R. N. (1996). Word segmentation: The role of distributional cues. Journal of Memory and Language, 35, 606–621.Google Scholar
Schmidt, R. (1990). The role of consciousness in second language learning. Applied Linguistics, 11, 129–158.Google Scholar
Schmidt, R. (1994). Implicit learning and the cognitive unconscious: Of artificial grammars and SLA. In N. C. Ellis (Ed.), Implicit and explicit learning of languages (pp. 165–209). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
Schmidt, R. (2001). Attention. In P. Robinson (Ed.), Cognition and second language instruction (pp. 3–32). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Simard, D., & Wong, W. (2001). Alertness, orientation, and detection: The conceptualization of attentional functions in SLA. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 23, 103–124.Google Scholar
Smith, L. B. (1999). Children's noun learning: How general learning processes make specialized learning mechanisms. In B. MacWhinney (Ed.), The emergence of language (pp. 277–303). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Taraban, R., & Kempe, V. (1999). Gender processing in native and nonnative Russian speakers. Applied Psycholinguistics, 20, 119–148.Google Scholar
Tomlin, R. S., & Villa, V. (1994). Attention in cognitive science and second language acquisition. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 16, 183–203.Google Scholar
Vargha-Khadem, F., Gadian, D. G., Watkins, K. E., Connelly, A., Van Paesschen, W., & Mishkin, M. (1997). Differential effects of early hippocampal pathology on episodic and semantic memory. Science, 277, 376–380.Google Scholar
Verfaellie, M., Koseff, P., & Alexander, M. P. (2000). Acquisition of novel semantic information in lesion location. Neuropsychologia, 38, 484–492.Google Scholar
Williams, J. N. (1999). Memory, attention, and inductive learning. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 21, 1–48.Google Scholar
Williams, J. N. (2003). Inducing abstract linguistic representations: Human and connectionist learning of noun classes. In R. H. van Hout, A. Hulk, F. Kuiken, & R. J. Towell (Eds.), The interface between syntax and the lexicon in second language acquisition (pp. 151–174). Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Williams, J. N. (2004). Implicit learning of form-meaning connections. In B. VanPatten, J. Williams, S. Rott, & M. Overstreet (Eds.), Form-meaning connections in second language acquisition (pp. 203–218). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Williams, J. N., & Lovatt, P. (2003). Phonological memory and rule learning. Language Learning, 53, 67–121.Google Scholar