Incidental Auditory Category Training for Language Learning

Not Applicable

Terminated

Conditions: Language
Healthy

Interventions: Behavioral: Explicit training
Behavioral: Incidental training
Behavioral: Classroom training
Behavioral: Classroom and incidental training
Behavioral: Classroom and explicit training

Registration Number: NCT04509024

Lead Sponsor: Carnegie Mellon University

Brief Summary: The overarching goal of the proposed research is to understand how human listeners learn speech categories. The project takes a prospective approach with adult second-language learners, blending empirical, methodological and theoretical advances from laboratory studies with explicit classroom instruction. The central hypothesis is that incidentally-acquired nonlinguistic perceptual building block categories may support speech perception and production in a second language. The project will advance important theoretical debates about the cross-talk between general auditory representations and speech categories and will provide a novel approach to nudging adult learners off learning plateau typically encountered in classroom instruction.

Detailed Description: Robust speech communication requires that listeners learn linguistically-relevant representations for stable language regularities, such as the speech sounds (phonemes) that convey meaning. In an increasingly multilingual society, as many as twenty percent of Americans accomplish this across multiple languages. Yet, second language acquisition is especially challenging among adult language learners, for whom learning typically involves explicit classroom instruction. Troublingly, research documents that instruction routinely results in a 'learning plateau' whereby language abilities stagnate or even atrophy despite continued instruction. There is a need to establish effective new approaches to nudge adult language learners off this plateau. This project integrates theoretical and methodological developments in auditory category learning with approaches to classroom-based L2 instruction. Specifically, incidental category learning (in which learners' attention is directed away from to-be-learned categories by an engaging videogame) taps into category learning systems distinct from those engaged in more explicit learning. Moreover, incidental learning of nonspeech sound categories leads to activation of putatively speech-selective cortex associated with speech categorization, suggesting potential representational cross-talk. This guides the central hypothesis of the project: incidental learning of nonspeech perceptual building block categories may provide a 'back door' through which to influence adult L2 learners' speech acquisition and to move them off the classroom learning plateau. An intensive 8-week incidental training study will test the hypothesis (Aim 1). Comparison of incidental nonspeech training with explicit L2 speech training will assess whether this cognitive 'back door' may be more effective in promoting L2 speech perception and production than explicit training with L2 speech and will determine the extent to which each interacts with classroom instruction in the L2 (Aim 2). The results will reveal whether nonspeech, auditory categories sharing common perceptual dimensions with second language categories scaffold L2 acquisition, the degree to which explicit instruction may support or interfere with new auditory categories, whether incidental learning is retained after training, and whether learning gains transfer to support other language-learning tasks. In blending empirical, methodological, and theoretical advances from laboratory studies with explicit classroom learning it will be possible to determine the interplay between incidentally-acquired nonlinguistic perceptual building block categories and an emerging L2. This will advance important theoretical debates about the cross-talk between general auditory representations and speech categories and will provide a novel approach to L2 pedagogy.

Recruitment & Eligibility

Status: TERMINATED

Sex: All

Target Recruitment: 106

Inclusion Criteria

18 or older, normal hearing
Native/non-native Chinese speakers

Exclusion Criteria

Younger than 18, loss of hearing

Study & Design

Study Type: INTERVENTIONAL

Study Design: SINGLE_GROUP

Arm && Interventions

Group	Intervention	Description
Explicit training	Explicit training	Participants undergo traditional explicit language learning.
Incidental training	Incidental training	Participants undergo novel non-linguistic incidental category learning training.
Classroom training	Classroom training	Participants take part in structured classroom learning.
Classroom and incidental training	Classroom and incidental training	Participants take part in structured classroom learning and incidental learning.
Classroom and explicit training	Classroom and explicit training	Participants take part in structured classroom learning and explicit learning.

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Novel Auditory Word Learning Accuracy After 2 Months of Training	Immediately after 2 months of training.	At post-test, participants did a three day novel word learning task. Their 48 word identification data points on the first and third days, respectively, were turned into a mean correct score. The difference in scores from Day 1 to Day 3 represents the change in mean novel word learning accuracy.
Change in Auditory Category Learning Accuracy After 2 Months of Training	Pre-test (baseline) and immediately after 2 months of training.	Each participant's 96 auditory categorization data points at Pre-test and Post-test, respectively, were turned into a mean of the correct answers. The difference between the two accuracy scores represents the mean change in accuracy.
Change in Sensitivity (D-prime) to Novel Speech Sounds After 2 Months of Training	Pre-test (baseline) and immediately after 2 months of training.	Each participant's 96 auditory discrimination data points at Pre-test and Post-test, respectively, were reduced to one sensitivity score: d-prime (d': hits minus false alarms). This transformation takes into account response bias and approaches a normal distribution. A higher score represents greater sensitivity. The difference in scores from pre- to post-test represents the change.

Secondary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Word Recognition Accuracy in Unrelated Language 3 Months After Training	3 months post-intervention	Three months after training, participants were scheduled to learn words in an unrelated language. Their mean accuracy would be calculated.