Speech stream composition affects statistical learning: Behavioral and neural evidence

Data from this study can be downloaded at: https://osf.io/g8xem/?view_only=250d9e5fc1344022b6818e98bdfd1055 (accessed on 10 February 2025).
Statistical learning (SL), the ability to extract patterns from the environment, has been assumed to play a central role in whole cognition, particularly in language acquisition. Evidence has been gathered, however, from behavioral experiments relying on simplified artificial languages, raising doubts on the generalizability of these results to natural contexts. Here, we tested if SL is affected by the composition of the speech streams by expositing participants to auditory streams containing either four nonsense words presenting a transitional probability (TP) of 1 (unmixed high-TP condition), four nonsense words presenting TPs of 0.33 (unmixed low-TP condition) or two nonsense words presenting a TP of 1, and two of a TP of 0.33 (mixed condition); first under incidental (implicit), and, subsequently, under intentional (explicit) conditions to further ascertain how prior knowledge modulates the results. Electrophysiological and behavioral data were collected from the familiarization and test phases of each of the SL tasks. Behavior results revealed reliable signs of SL for all the streams, even though differences across stream conditions failed to reach significance. The neural results revealed, however, facilitative processing of the mixed over the unmixed low-TP and the unmixed high-TP conditions in the N400 and P200 components, suggesting that moderate levels of entropy boost SL.
This work was conducted at CIPsi, School of Psychology, University of Minho, supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT; UID/01662: Centro de Investigação em Psicologia) through national funds and also supported by the FCT grant 2022.05618.PTDC. H.M.O. is covered by the Program-Contract signed between the FCT and the University of Minho within the scope of the Individual Call to Scientific Employment (5th Edition; Ref: 2022.05154.CEECIND).