| Popis: |
This research project aims to investigate the mechanisms behind the ability to learn new language rules in adults. Some argue that adults rely on statistical knowledge to learn rules (frequency-based learning), while others argue that adults create mental abstractions of rules (rule-based learning). Recent empirical research favours the frequency-based hypothesis (e.g., Kemp & Bryant, 2003). We challenge this unitary dimension of frequency- and rule-based approaches to language learning, and propose the existence of individual differences in the strategy used to learn new language rules. In this study, we apply a recent theoretical approach from the psychology of reasoning that distinguishes two different information processing styles (i.e., the dual-strategy model of reasoning; Markovits, Brisson, & de Chantal, 2016; Markovits, Brisson, de Chantal, & Thompson, 2017). Specifically, we examine whether adults who use a statistical strategy in a reasoning task are more likely to use frequency-based information to learn new language rules than adults who use a counterexample strategy, which might be more likely to create mental abstractions of new rules. |
