Date of Award

Spring 2024

Project Type

Thesis

Program or Major

Communication Sciences and Disorders

Degree Name

Master of Science

First Advisor

Amy Ramage

Second Advisor

Jill Thorson

Third Advisor

Elena Plante

Abstract

This study examined the presence of modality and cognitive effects within implicit statistical learning (ISL) to characterize how it operates within the context of language learning. The first research aim looked to investigate differences in ISL performance as it relates to modality, specifically auditory versus visual formats. Additionally, the relationship between cognitive measures and ISL task performance was investigated to characterize potential interactions between learning and cognition. In this study healthy adults between the ages of 18-35 were administered auditory and visual ISL experimental tasks. Participants were familiarized with a target grammar pattern in an exposure phase. After the exposure phase, a test phase was administered in which participants determined whether a stimulus item matched or deviated from the target grammar. Accuracy and response time measures were recorded. Additionally, performance on a battery of cognitive assessments were correlated with performance on ISL tasks. Participants demonstrated learning in both ISL task modalities, with the auditory ISL task yielding a significantly longer response time. There were no significant correlations found between ISL task performance and the batter of cognitive assessments. The results suggest that ISL can occur regardless of modality input, with possible ancillary effects of modality on stimulus processing and response time. Additionally, the results argue that cognitive mechanisms remain discrete from ISL mechanisms within the context of this study. The results of this study help to characterize modality and cognitive interactions with ISL mechanisms as it relates to language learning.

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