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Abstract Perception changes rapidly and implicitly as a function of passive exposure to speech that samples different acoustic distributions. Past research has shown that this statistical learning generalizes across talkers and, to some extent, new items, but these studies involved listeners’ active engagement in processing statistics-bearing stimuli. In this study, we manipulated the relationship between voice onset time (VOT) and fundamental frequency (F0) to establish distributional regularities either aligned with American English or reversed to create a subtle foreign accent. We then tested whether statistical learning across passive exposure to these distributions generalized to new items never experienced in the accent. Experiment 1 showed statistical learning across passive exposure but no generalization of learning when exposure and test items shared the same initial consonant but differed in vowels (bear/pear → beer/pier) or when they differed in initial consonant but shared distributional regularities across VOT and F0 dimensions (deer/tear → beer/pier). Experiment 2 showed generalization to stimuli that shared the statistics-bearing phoneme (bear/pear → beer/pier), but only when the response set included tokens from both exposure and generalization stimuli. Moreover, statistical learning transferred to influence the subtle acoustics of listeners’ own speech productions but did not generalize to influence productions of stimuli not heard in the accent. In sum, passive exposure is thus sufficient to support statistical learning and its generalization, but task demands modulate this dynamic. Moreover, production does not simply mirror perception: generalization in perception was not accompanied by transfer to production. 

Abstract There is considerable lab‐based evidence for successful incidental learning, in which a learner's attention is directed away from the to‐be‐learned stimulus and towards another stimulus. In this study, we extend incidental learning research into the language learning classroom. Three groups of adult second language (L2) learners (N= 52) engaged in structured classroom Mandarin learning took part in an 8‐week study. One group served as a classroom‐only control group. The second group underwent additional intentional auditory training involving Mandarin speech and explicit feedback. The third group underwent additional incidental learning combined with nonspeech “perceptual building block” categories—categories that share critical perceptual dimensions with target L2 speech categories but that are not perceived as speech. We demonstrate that when supplemented with structured classroom learning, incidental learning involving nonspeech analogs promotes phonetic, category, and word learning equivalent to learning from more traditional intentional auditory training. 

Statistical learning (SL) is typically assumed to be a core mechanism by which organisms learn covarying structures and recurrent patterns in the environment, with the main purpose of facilitating processing of expected events. Within this theoretical framework, the environment is viewed as relatively stable, and SL ‘captures’ the regularities therein through implicit unsupervised learning by mere exposure. Focusing primarily on language— the domain in which SL theory has been most influential—we review evidence that the environment is far from fixed: it is dynamic, in continual flux, and learners are far from passive absorbers of regularities; they interact with their environments, thereby selecting and even altering the patterns they learn from. We therefore argue for an alternative cognitive architecture, where SL serves as a subcomponent of an information foraging (IF) system. IF aims to detect and assimilate novel recurrent patterns in the input that deviate from randomness, for which SL supplies a baseline. The broad implications of this viewpoint and their relevance to recent debates in cognitive neuroscience are discussed. 

The human auditory system consists of both peripheral and central components, both of which play a role but contribute distinctly to overall auditory functioning and can be differentially impacted by pathophysiologic states. Hemispheric surgery (HS), a procedure used for the treatment of drug-resistant epilepsy, involves com- plete disconnection of the auditory cortex in the operative hemisphere, leaving hearing acuity (peripheral function) intact but having heavy implications for auditory processing (central function). The literature describing pre- and post-operative auditory processing abilities of individuals who have undergone HS is sparse, but the research available provides evidence that several central auditory processes including auditory spatial analysis and temporal processing may be impacted. De昀椀cits noted in standardized testing within the clinical or research environment have concrete functional impacts that may be currently under-appreciated and could lead to under-utilization of appropriate therapeutic strategies and accommodations. This review describes the pro昀椀le of central auditory processing abilities in patients who have undergone HS by synthesizing available literature and incorporating research in other clinical populations to help 昀椀ll critical gaps in our understanding of how cerebral disconnection impacts the central auditory system. 

Humans generate categories from complex regularities evolving across even imperfect sensory input. Here, we examined the possibility that incidental experiences can generate lasting category knowledge. Adults practiced a simple visuomotor task not dependent on acoustic input. Novel categories of acoustically complex sounds were not necessary for task success but aligned incidentally with distinct visuomotor responses in the task. Incidental sound category learning emerged robustly when within-category sound exemplar variability was closely yoked to visuomotor task demands and was not apparent in the initial session when this coupling was less robust. Nonetheless, incidentally acquired sound category knowledge was evident in both cases one day later, indicative of offline learning gains and, nine days later, learning in both cases supported explicit category labeling of novel sounds. Thus, a relatively brief incidental experience with multi-dimensional sound patterns aligned with behaviorally relevant actions and events can generate new sound categories, immediately after the learning experience or a day later. These categories undergo consolidation into long-term memory to support robust generalization of learning, rather than simply reflecting recall of specific sound-pattern exemplars previously encountered. Humans thus forage for information to acquire and consolidate new knowledge that may incidentally support behavior, even when learning is not strictly necessary for performance. 

Categorization has a deep impact on behavior, but whether category learning is served by a single system or multiple systems remains debated. Here, we designed two well-equated nonspeech auditory category learning challenges to draw on putative procedural (information-integration) versus declarative (rule-based) learning systems among adult Hebrew-speaking control participants and individuals with dyslexia, a language disorder that has been linked to a selective disruption in the procedural memory system and in which phonological deficits are ubiquitous. We observed impaired information-integration category learning and spared rule-based category learning in the dyslexia group compared with the neurotypical group. Quantitative model-based analyses revealed reduced use of, and slower shifting to, optimal procedural-based strategies in dyslexia with hypothesis-testing strategy use on par with control participants. The dissociation is consistent with multiple category learning systems and points to the possibility that procedural learning inefficiencies across categories defined by complex, multidimensional exemplars may result in difficulty in phonetic category acquisition in dyslexia.