The main objective of the proposed research is to understand how the linguistic system continues to learn in adulthood. We will examine learning at two quite different levels: syntax and phonetics. Learning mechanisms in adults are not well understood at any level; it is also not clear that the mechanisms are the same across levels. Three groups of experiments will determine whether (i) implicit learning in adults requires meaning, (ii) learning requires explicit exposure to the correct underlying syntactic or phonetic structure (or if adults can use meaning to infer that structure), and (iii) whether learning serves comprehension and production in the same way, or whether there are functional differences between the two systems. We use several paradigms and measures of learning at each level: syntactic priming and phonetic convergence in production (each refers to the tendency of speakers to re-use structures that they have previously been exposed to), and syntactic fluency and phoneme identification in comprehension. Overall, this research will strengthen our knowledge of learning that results from both syntactic and phonemic processing, and the similarities (and differences) between the two. ? ?

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development (NICHD)
Type
Postdoctoral Individual National Research Service Award (F32)
Project #
7F32HD052342-03
Application #
7490955
Study Section
Special Emphasis Panel (ZRG1-F12A (20))
Program Officer
Mccardle, Peggy D
Project Start
2006-09-30
Project End
2009-09-29
Budget Start
2008-09-30
Budget End
2009-09-29
Support Year
3
Fiscal Year
2008
Total Cost
$48,796
Indirect Cost
Name
University of Pennsylvania
Department
Psychology
Type
Schools of Arts and Sciences
DUNS #
042250712
City
Philadelphia
State
PA
Country
United States
Zip Code
19104
Ferreira, Victor S; Kleinman, Daniel; Kraljic, Tanya et al. (2012) Do priming effects in dialogue reflect partner- or task-based expectations? Psychon Bull Rev 19:309-16
Kraljic, Tanya; Samuel, Arthur G (2011) Perceptual learning evidence for contextually-specific representations. Cognition 121:459-65
Samuel, Arthur G; Kraljic, Tanya (2009) Perceptual learning for speech. Atten Percept Psychophys 71:1207-18
Kraljic, Tanya; Brennan, Susan E; Samuel, Arthur G (2008) Accommodating variation: dialects, idiolects, and speech processing. Cognition 107:54-81
Kraljic, Tanya; Samuel, Arthur G; Brennan, Susan E (2008) First impressions and last resorts: how listeners adjust to speaker variability. Psychol Sci 19:332-8