Cognitive Development as a Piece of the Language Learning Puzzle.

Autor: Smalle EHM; Department of Experimental Psychology, Ghent University.; Department of Developmental Psychology, Tilburg University., Möttönen R; Cognitive Science, Department of Digital Humanities, University of Helsinki.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Cognitive science [Cogn Sci] 2023 May; Vol. 47 (5), pp. e13296.
DOI: 10.1111/cogs.13296
Abstrakt: Why do children learn language more easily than adults do? This puzzle has fascinated cognitive and language scientists for decades. In the present letter, we approach the language learning puzzle from a cognitive perspective that is inspired by evidence from the perceptual and motor learning literature. Neuroscientific studies show that two memory systems in the brain are involved in human learning: an early implicit procedural memory system and a late-developing cognitive or declarative memory system. We argue that higher cognitive development constrains implicit statistical learning processes that are essential for learning patterns and regularities in languages, that is, the adult cognitive architecture has a cost. This is supported by experimental evidence showing that acquisition of implicit linguistic knowledge is enhanced under cognitive depletion in adults. More research is needed to test the cognitive cost hypothesis as it could partly solve the language learning puzzle.
(© 2023 The Authors. Cognitive Science published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Cognitive Science Society (CSS).)
Databáze: MEDLINE
Externí odkaz: