Implicit structured sequence learning
Vet du hur du lyckas tala ditt modersmål utan att göra grammatiska fel trots att du förmodligen inte vet hur man ska beskriva de grammatiska regler som du använder? Vasiliki Folias avhandling handlar om implicit inlärning samt artificiell grammatik och är ett försök att undersöka implicita förvärv och anskaffandet av sekvensstruktur.
Vasiliki Folia
Docent Karl Magnus Petersson, Karolinska Institutet, professor Martin Ingvar, Karolinska Institutet
Professor Thomas F. Münte, University of Lübeck
Karolinska Institutet
2013-05-13
Implicit structured sequence learning
Institutionen för klinisk neurovetenskap
Implicit structured sequence learning
A simple question: Do you know how you manage to speak your native language without making grammatical errors despite the fact that you probably do not know how to describe the grammatical rules you use? Sometimes such simple questions do not have simp le answers. The amazing capacity to effectively communicate complex information and thoughts through the medium of language is the result of the way language, and more specifically, linguistic rules are learned: in an implicit manner. Learning is implicit when we acquire new information without intending to do so and without awareness that knowledge is acquired (Forkstam & Petersson, 2005). In this thesis, an implicit artificial grammar learning (AGL) paradigm (Stadler & Frensch, 1998) was investigated from two perspectives: as a model probing the acquisition of structural, or syntactic, aspects of natural language (Petersson, 2005; Petersson, Forkstam, & Ingvar, 2004) and as a model for implicit learning. Rebe r, in his seminal work on AGL (1967), proposed that successful task – performance of participants is due to their ability to learn new grammatical rules implicitly. This ability, he claimed, is comparable to the way humans acquire the syntax – rules of their n ative language without systematic explicit guidance or awareness of what is learned. The AGL paradigm used here is unique in combining implicit acquisition with core characteristics of the actual conditions for syntax learning: implicit learning from gra mmatical examples without performance feedback. Three studies employed the above paradigm in combination with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate structured sequence processing, while one study investigated a well – characterized natu ral language paradigm to investigate syntactic and semantic processing and their interaction. Consequently Reber’s statement (1967) concerning the comparability of the processes involved in artificial and natural language syntax could be investigated at th e neurobiological level.