Learning to generalise but not segment an artificial language at 17 months predicts children’s language skills 3 years later

Sep 29, 2026

Investigates whether learning an artificial language at 17 months predicts children’s later natural language abilities at 54 months. At 17 months, children are trained on an artificial language with non-adjacent dependencies and are assessed for learning to segment and to generalise the language structure. At 54 months, receptive and expressive vocabulary and grammar are measured using standard tasks. Structural equation modelling shows generalisation predicts language abilities, while segmentation does not.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages13

Reading Time33 min

AccessFree to download

Abstract

1. Introduction

Language learning tasks: vocabulary and grammar

Relations between vocabulary and grammar

Artificial language learning as a tool

Statistical learning and dependencies

Cognitive Psychology 147 (2023) 101607 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Cognitive Psychology journal [homepage:](homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/cogpsych)[ www.elsevier.com/locate/cogpsych](homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/cogpsych) | Learning to generalise but not segment an artificial language at 17 months predicts children’s language skills 3 years later
Padraic Monaghana, *, Seamus Donnelly b, Katie Alcock a, Amy Bidgood c, Kate Cain a, Samantha Durrantd, Rebecca L.A. Frost e, Lana S. Jagoa, c, Michelle S. Peter f, Julian M. Pine g, Heather Turnbull g, Caroline F. Rowland h, g, i
a Lancaster University, UK
b Australian National University, Australia c Liverpool John Moores University, UK d Manchester University, UK
e Edge Hill University, UK f Great Ormond Street Hospital, UK g Liverpool University, UK
h Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, the Netherlands i Radboud University, the Netherlands | | | | --- | --- | --- | | A R T I C L E I N F O | | A B S T R A C T | | Keywords: Vocabulary Grammar
Artificial language learning Non-adjacent dependencies Generalisation Segmentation | | We investigated whether learning an artificial language at 17 months was predictive of children’s natural language vocabulary and grammar skills at 54 months. Children at 17 months listened to an artificial language containing non-adjacent dependencies, and were then tested on their learning to segment and to generalise the structure of the language. At 54 months, children were then tested on a range of standardised natural language tasks that assessed receptive and expressive vocabulary and grammar. A structural equation model demonstrated that learning the artificial language generalisation at 17 months predicted language abilities – a composite of vocabulary and grammar skills – at 54 months, whereas artificial language segmentation at 17 months did not predict language abilities at this age. Artificial language learning tasks – especially those that probe grammar learning – provide a valuable tool for uncovering the mechanisms driving children’s early language development. | 1. Introduction In order to acquire language, children need to be able to build a vocabulary – that is, they must determine what are the meaningful units in speech. They must also develop an understanding of the grammar of their language, which requires finding the relations between those words in utterances (Bates, Bretherton, & Snyder, 1988; Brinchmann, Braeken, & Lyster, 2019; Dale, Dionne, Eley, & Plomin, 2000; Dixon & Marchman, 2007; Labrell et al., 2014). How children resolve these two learning tasks can be characterised as a“chicken-and-egg” problem (Childers, Heard, Ring, Pai, & Sallquist, 2012; Gleitman, 1990; Gleitman, Cassidy, Nappa, Papafragou, & Trueswell, 2005): in order to acquire the meaning of a word, its grammatical role in a sentence has to be understood, yet, in order to * Corresponding author at: Padraic Monaghan, Department of Psychology, Lancaster University, Lancaster LA1 4YF, England. E-mail address: [p.monaghan@lancaster.ac.uk](p.monaghan@lancaster.ac.uk) (P. Monaghan). [https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogpsych.2023.101607](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogpsych.2023.101607) Received 27 February 2023; Received in revised form 30 August 2023; Accepted 18 September 2023 Available online 7 October 2023 0010-0285/© 2023 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. This is an open access article under the CC BY license ([http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)). understand the role of the word in the sentence, the grammar of the sentence needs to be known. Obviously, children do acquire both vocabulary and grammar. So, how do they accomplish these inter-related tasks? Studies on children’s language development have investigated the intimate relation between vocabulary and grammar development. Vocabulary might provide the base on which grammatical kn

FAQs

What was the main research question in this study?

Whether learning an artificial language at 17 months predicts children’s vocabulary and grammar skills in natural language at 54 months.

How were children assessed at 17 months?

Children listened to an artificial language with non-adjacent dependencies, then were tested on segmentation and on generalisation of the language structure.

What did the structural equation model find at 54 months?

Generalisation at 17 months predicted language abilities at 54 months, whereas segmentation at 17 months did not predict those abilities at that age.

Sep 29, 2026

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