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Language is acquired in part through statistical learning abilities that encode environmental regularities. Language development is also heavily influenced by social environmental factors such as socioeconomic status. However, it is... more
Language is acquired in part through statistical learning abilities that encode environmental regularities. Language development is also heavily influenced by social environmental factors such as socioeconomic status. However, it is unknown to what extent statistical learning interacts with SES to affect language outcomes. We measured event-related potentials in 26 children aged 8–12 while they performed a visual statistical learning task. Regression analyses indicated that children’s learning performance moderated the relationship between socioeconomic status and both syntactic and vocabulary language comprehension scores. For children demonstrating high learning, socioeconomic status had a weaker effect on language compared to children showing low learning. These results suggest that high statistical learning ability can provide a buffer against the disadvantages associated with being raised in a lower socioeconomic status household.
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Introduction: Research on the Hawthorne Effect suggests that behavior changes dramatically when participants know they are being watched (Kidwai and Abujudeh 2015). However, it is unknown if the Hawthorne Effect affects neural responses... more
Introduction: Research on the Hawthorne Effect suggests that behavior changes dramatically when participants know they are being watched (Kidwai and Abujudeh 2015). However, it is unknown if the Hawthorne Effect affects neural responses as measured by event related potentials (ERPs). It is also not known whether the Hawthorn Effect affects incidental learning. We hypothesize that telling participants they are being watched will encourage them to pay attention, which will cause a change in ERP patterns during an implicit sequential learning task.
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Research Interests:
Statistical learning (SL) is believed to be a mechanism that enables successful language acquisition. Language acquisition in turn is heavily influenced by environmental factors such as socioeconomic status (SES). However, it is unknown... more
Statistical learning (SL) is believed to be a mechanism that enables successful language acquisition. Language acquisition in turn is heavily influenced by environmental factors such as socioeconomic status (SES). However, it is unknown to what extent SL abilities interact with SES in affecting language outcomes. To examine this potential interaction, we measured event-related potentials (ERPs) in 38 children aged 7-12 while performing a visual SL task consisting of a sequence of stimuli that contained covert statistical probabilities that predicted a target stimulus. Hierarchical regression results indicated that SL ability moderated the relationship between SES (average of both caregiver’s education level) and language scores (grammar, and marginally with receptive vocabulary). For children with high SL ability, SES had a weaker effect on language compared to children with low SL ability, suggesting that having good SL abilities could help ameliorate the disadvantages associated w...
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Previous research has shown a positive relationship between executive function (EF) and vocabulary (Blair & Raza 2007). Research has also shown that bilingual adults tend to have higher EF than monolinguals (Filippi et. al 2012). However,... more
Previous research has shown a positive relationship between executive function (EF) and vocabulary (Blair & Raza 2007). Research has also shown that bilingual adults tend to have higher EF than monolinguals (Filippi et. al 2012). However, bilingual adults tend to have lower vocabulary in each language than monolinguals (Allman 2005). Given these findings, we aimed to test 1) whether there is a different relationship between EF and language for bilinguals than monolinguals, and 2) whether using verbal versus non-verbal Stroop tasks to measure EF might alter these relationships.
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Behavioral and Neurophysiological Correlates of Sequential Learning are Associated with Language Development in Children Joanne A. Deocampo (jdeocampo@gsu.edu) Department of Psychology, Georgia State University, P.O. Box 5010, Atlanta, GA... more
Behavioral and Neurophysiological Correlates of Sequential Learning are Associated with Language Development in Children Joanne A. Deocampo (jdeocampo@gsu.edu) Department of Psychology, Georgia State University, P.O. Box 5010, Atlanta, GA 30302 Christopher M. Conway (cconway@gsu.edu) Department of Psychology, Georgia State University, P.O. Box 5010, Atlanta, GA 30302 Leyla Eghbalzad (leghbalzad1@student.gsu.edu) Department of Psychology, Georgia State University, P.O. Box 5010, Atlanta, GA 30302 Jerome Daltrozzo (Jerome.daltrozzo@gmail.com) Department of Psychology, Georgia State University, P.O. Box 5010, Atlanta, GA 30302 Abstract Sequential learning (SL) is believed to be an essential component of language development. Despite support from behavioral studies, neural evidence of this relationship, especially in children, is scarce. The current study measured 7-12-year-olds’ ERPs to a visual SL task involving incidental learning of probabilistic relationships between predictors and...
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Previous research has shown a link between sequential learning (SL) and language as well as links between executive function (EF) and both language and SL. However, little research has focused on both the development of the relationship... more
Previous research has shown a link between sequential learning (SL) and language as well as links between executive function (EF) and both language and SL. However, little research has focused on both the development of the relationship between these factors and their neurological underpinnings. Here we report a study of the event-related potential (ERP) correlates of SL and behavioral measures of language and EF in a sample of 7-12-year-old children. Results revealed that both SL and EF had independent associations with language development but that the contribution that both made toward language development shifted dramatically between the ages of 7 to 11-12 years. The results furthermore suggest that this developmental shift may be due in part to the maturation of EF abilities and changes due to neural entrenchment and commitment as a consequence of language acquisition.
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Research Interests:
This study investigated the role of sequential processing in spoken language outcomes for children who are deaf or hard of hearing (DHH), ages 5;3–11;4, by comparing them to children with typical hearing (TH), ages 6;3–9;7, on sequential... more
This study investigated the role of sequential processing in spoken language outcomes for children who are deaf or hard of hearing (DHH), ages 5;3–11;4, by comparing them to children with typical hearing (TH), ages 6;3–9;7, on sequential learning and memory tasks involving easily nameable and difficult-to-name visual stimuli. Children who are DHH performed more poorly on easily nameable sequencing tasks, which positively predicted receptive vocabulary scores. Results suggest sequential learning and memory may underlie delayed language skills of many children who are DHH. Implications for language development in children who are DHH are discussed.
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Statistical learning-the ability to learn patterns in environmental input-is increasingly recognized as a foundational mechanism necessary for the successful acquisition of spoken language. Spoken language is a complex, serially presented... more
Statistical learning-the ability to learn patterns in environmental input-is increasingly recognized as a foundational mechanism necessary for the successful acquisition of spoken language. Spoken language is a complex, serially presented signal that contains embedded statistical relations among linguistic units, such as phonemes, morphemes, and words, which represent the phonotactic and syntactic rules of language. In this review article, we first review recent work that demonstrates that, in typical language development, individuals who display better nonlinguistic statistical learning abilities also show better performance on different measures of language. We next review research findings that suggest that children who are deaf and use cochlear implants may have difficulties learning sequential input patterns, possibly due to auditory and/or linguistic deprivation early in development, and that the children who show better sequence learning abilities also display improved spoken...
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Statistical learning (SL) is believed to enable language acquisition by allowing individuals to learn regularities within linguistic input. However, neural evidence supporting a direct relationship between SL and language ability is... more
Statistical learning (SL) is believed to enable language acquisition by allowing individuals to learn regularities within linguistic input. However, neural evidence supporting a direct relationship between SL and language ability is scarce. We investigated whether there are associations between event-related potential (ERP) correlates of SL and language abilities while controlling for the general level of selective attention. Seventeen adults completed tests of visual SL, receptive vocabulary, grammatical ability, and sentence completion. Response times and ERPs showed that SL is related to receptive vocabulary and grammatical ability. ERPs indicated that the relationship between SL and grammatical ability was independent of attention while the association between SL and receptive vocabulary depended on attention. The implications of these dissociative relationships in terms of underlying mechanisms of SL and language are discussed. These results further elucidate the cognitive natu...
Research Interests: Vocabulary, Language Development, Electroencephalography, Linguistics, Language, and 15 moreAdolescent, Learning, Humans, Female, Male, Reaction Time, Young Adult, Language Culture and Communication, Middle Aged, Adult, Visual Evoked Potentials, Random Allocation, photic stimulation, Psychology and Cognitive Sciences, and Medical and Health Sciences
"Graduate Program in Psychology." Thesis (Ph. D.)--Rutgers University, 2003. Includes abstract. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 128-132).
... Assessing Memory in Infancy ... In addition, although the neural substrate that supports the behavior has not been elucidated, CA Nelson ' s (1997) analysis of the paradigm implicates cerebellum and the hippocampus,... more
... Assessing Memory in Infancy ... In addition, although the neural substrate that supports the behavior has not been elucidated, CA Nelson ' s (1997) analysis of the paradigm implicates cerebellum and the hippocampus, but not the balance of the ... Early Memory Development 165 ...
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Research Interests:
... Assessing Memory in Infancy ... In addition, although the neural substrate that supports the behavior has not been elucidated, CA Nelson ' s (1997) analysis of the paradigm implicates cerebellum and the hippocampus,... more
... Assessing Memory in Infancy ... In addition, although the neural substrate that supports the behavior has not been elucidated, CA Nelson ' s (1997) analysis of the paradigm implicates cerebellum and the hippocampus, but not the balance of the ... Early Memory Development 165 ...
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June 2007 Volume 45 Number 3 Article Number 3FEA2. Return to Current Issue. An Integrative Approach to Addressing Childhood Overweight: Inclusion of Parenting Information in Nutrition Education Programs. Lenna L. Ontai ...
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... being, treated as if it could act independently Level 5. Hierarchical combinations Any combinations including an clement qualifying as ... & McDonald, 1988), chimpanzee Washoe (Gardner & Gardner, 1969),... more
... being, treated as if it could act independently Level 5. Hierarchical combinations Any combinations including an clement qualifying as ... & McDonald, 1988), chimpanzee Washoe (Gardner & Gardner, 1969), oran-gutan Chantek (Miles, 1990) and gorilla Koko (Patterson, 1978c ...
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The authors investigated the ability of deaf children with cochlear implants (CIs) to use sentence context to facilitate the perception of spoken words. Deaf children with CIs (n = 24) and an age-matched group of children with normal... more
The authors investigated the ability of deaf children with cochlear implants (CIs) to use sentence context to facilitate the perception of spoken words. Deaf children with CIs (n = 24) and an age-matched group of children with normal hearing (n = 31) were presented with lexically controlled sentences and were asked to repeat each sentence in its entirety. Performance was analyzed at each of 3 word positions of each sentence (first, second, and third key word). Whereas the children with normal hearing showed robust effects of contextual facilitation-improved speech perception for the final words in a sentence-the deaf children with CIs on average showed no such facilitation. Regression analyses indicated that for the deaf children with CIs, Forward Digit Span scores significantly predicted accuracy scores for all 3 positions, whereas performance on the Stroop Color and Word Test, Children's Version (Golden, Freshwater, & Golden, 2003) predicted how much contextual facilitation was observed at the final word. The pattern of results suggests that some deaf children with CIs do not use sentence context to improve spoken word recognition. The inability to use sentence context may be due to possible interactions between language experience and cognitive factors that affect the ability to successfully integrate temporal-sequential information in spoken language.
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... Assessing Memory in Infancy ... In addition, although the neural substrate that supports the behavior has not been elucidated, CA Nelson ' s (1997) analysis of the paradigm implicates cerebellum and the hippocampus,... more
... Assessing Memory in Infancy ... In addition, although the neural substrate that supports the behavior has not been elucidated, CA Nelson ' s (1997) analysis of the paradigm implicates cerebellum and the hippocampus, but not the balance of the ... Early Memory Development 165 ...
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This experiment examined 24-and 30-month-olds' understanding of photographs as reminders using a deferred imitation paradigm. The 24-and 30-month-olds visited a laboratory playroom and observed an experimenter demonstrating novel... more
This experiment examined 24-and 30-month-olds' understanding of photographs as reminders using a deferred imitation paradigm. The 24-and 30-month-olds visited a laboratory playroom and observed an experimenter demonstrating novel activities. Upon ...
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Sequential learning (SL) is believed to be an essential component of language development. Despite support from behavioral studies, neural evidence of this relationship, especially in children, is scarce. The current study measured... more
Sequential learning (SL) is believed to be an essential
component of language development. Despite support from
behavioral studies, neural evidence of this relationship,
especially in children, is scarce. The current study measured
7-12-year-olds’ ERPs to a visual SL task involving incidental
learning of probabilistic relationships between predictors and
targets presented within a serial input stream. Various aspects
of language and cognitive development were assessed with
standardized tests. Results on the SL task showed that
children demonstrated SL as determined by differences in
ERP amplitudes and response times for predictor conditions
that varied with the probability of predicting the target.
Crucially, the amplitude of ERP difference waveforms was
positively correlated with language ability and cognitive
control. These findings validate the use of a probabilistic
visual predictor-target task to investigate SL in children and,
most importantly, provide neural evidence of a close
relationship between SL, language development and cognitive
control.
component of language development. Despite support from
behavioral studies, neural evidence of this relationship,
especially in children, is scarce. The current study measured
7-12-year-olds’ ERPs to a visual SL task involving incidental
learning of probabilistic relationships between predictors and
targets presented within a serial input stream. Various aspects
of language and cognitive development were assessed with
standardized tests. Results on the SL task showed that
children demonstrated SL as determined by differences in
ERP amplitudes and response times for predictor conditions
that varied with the probability of predicting the target.
Crucially, the amplitude of ERP difference waveforms was
positively correlated with language ability and cognitive
control. These findings validate the use of a probabilistic
visual predictor-target task to investigate SL in children and,
most importantly, provide neural evidence of a close
relationship between SL, language development and cognitive
control.