TY - JOUR
T1 - Unlocking adults’ implicit statistical learning by cognitive depletion
AU - Smalle, Eleonore H.M.
AU - Daikoku, Tatsuya
AU - Szmalec, Arnaud
AU - Duyck, Wouter
AU - Onen, Riikka Mott
N1 - Funding Information:
E.H.M.S. was funded by a grant from the Research Foundation – Flanders (Grant No. 1211421N). T.D. was funded by a travel grant from the Suntory Foundation. The research costs were covered by startup funds from the School of Psychology (University of Nottingham) and the TMS and EEG equipment by a Medical Research Council fellowship (G1000566) to R.M. R.M. was also supported by Profi5 (Mind and Matter) funding from the Academy of Finland to the University of Helsinki.
PY - 2022
Y1 - 2022
N2 - Human learning is supported by multiple neural mechanisms that maturate at different rates and interact in mostly cooperative but also sometimes competitive ways. We tested the hypothesis that mature cognitive mechanisms constrain implicit statistical learning mechanisms that contribute to early language acquisition. Specifically, we tested the prediction that depleting cognitive control mechanisms in adults enhances their implicit, auditory word-segmentation abilities. Young adults were exposed to continuous streams of syllables that repeated into hidden novel words while watching a silent film. Afterward, learning was measured in a forced-choice test that contrasted hidden words with nonwords. The participants also had to indicate whether they explicitly recalled the word or not in order to dissociate explicit versus implicit knowledge. We additionally measured electroencephalography during exposure to measure neural entrainment to the repeating words. Engagement of the cognitive mechanisms was manipulated by using two methods. In experiment 1 (n = 36), inhibitory theta-burst stimulation (TBS) was applied to the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex or to a control region. In experiment 2 (n = 60), participants performed a dual working-memory task that induced high or low levels of cognitive fatigue. In both experiments, cognitive depletion enhanced word recognition, especially when participants reported low confidence in remembering the words (i.e., when their knowledge was implicit). TBS additionally modulated neural entrainment to the words and syllables. These findings suggest that cognitive depletion improves the acquisition of linguistic knowledge in adults by unlocking implicit statistical learning mechanisms and support the hypothesis that adult language learning is antagonized by higher cognitive mechanisms.
AB - Human learning is supported by multiple neural mechanisms that maturate at different rates and interact in mostly cooperative but also sometimes competitive ways. We tested the hypothesis that mature cognitive mechanisms constrain implicit statistical learning mechanisms that contribute to early language acquisition. Specifically, we tested the prediction that depleting cognitive control mechanisms in adults enhances their implicit, auditory word-segmentation abilities. Young adults were exposed to continuous streams of syllables that repeated into hidden novel words while watching a silent film. Afterward, learning was measured in a forced-choice test that contrasted hidden words with nonwords. The participants also had to indicate whether they explicitly recalled the word or not in order to dissociate explicit versus implicit knowledge. We additionally measured electroencephalography during exposure to measure neural entrainment to the repeating words. Engagement of the cognitive mechanisms was manipulated by using two methods. In experiment 1 (n = 36), inhibitory theta-burst stimulation (TBS) was applied to the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex or to a control region. In experiment 2 (n = 60), participants performed a dual working-memory task that induced high or low levels of cognitive fatigue. In both experiments, cognitive depletion enhanced word recognition, especially when participants reported low confidence in remembering the words (i.e., when their knowledge was implicit). TBS additionally modulated neural entrainment to the words and syllables. These findings suggest that cognitive depletion improves the acquisition of linguistic knowledge in adults by unlocking implicit statistical learning mechanisms and support the hypothesis that adult language learning is antagonized by higher cognitive mechanisms.
KW - Adolescent
KW - Adult
KW - Cognition/physiology
KW - Electroencephalography
KW - Female
KW - Humans
KW - Language
KW - Language Development
KW - Learning/physiology
KW - Linguistics
KW - Male
KW - Memory, Short-Term/physiology
KW - Mental Recall
KW - Prefrontal Cortex/growth & development
KW - Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation
KW - Young Adult
UR - https://osf.io/dequ9/
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85122639805&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1073/pnas.2026011119
DO - 10.1073/pnas.2026011119
M3 - Article
C2 - 34983868
AN - SCOPUS:85122639805
SN - 0027-8424
VL - 119
JO - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
JF - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
IS - 2
M1 - e2026011119
ER -