Short-term memory (STM) has demonstrated to be affected by serial order, involving the use of rhythm and entrainment to stimuli. However, less is known of the extent of this relationship and language learning, and the literature focuses on words rather than sentences. Moreover, the literature lacks an exploration of whether this relationship has a correlation with MMN responses.
We had 30 participants (21 female) complete two sentence repetition tasks, a temporal rhythm accuracy task, and two temporal order judgment tasks. We also recorded the electroencephalograms (EEG) from 24 of the participants (17 female) while they listened to syllables differing by time of presentation and differing by consonant and vowel. We then correlated performance on these tasks to performance on a foreign-word learning (FWL) task. We hypothesized that the STM tasks would predict performance in the FWL task, and we explored whether temporal accuracy and word learning correlated with MMN responses to early stimuli. We found that only the foreign sentence repetition task significantly predicted performance in the FWL task. We also did not find any significant correlations with MMN responses and temporal accuracy and word learning abilities. Findings show that with previous exposure to a novel language, the prosodic pattern of the foreign language is stored temporarily in STM, which enhances learning of the foreign words. Further exploration is needed to understand the relationship of temporal order and language learning with cortical responses. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc) / Spoken language is driven by rhythm and keeping track of this rhythm allows us to keep track of the order in which sounds in language are presented. Remembering the order of items requires the use of short-term memory. The better one is at repeating back the order of items, the better they are at learning new words. This thesis investigates the relationship between various short-term memory tasks (English nonword sentence repetition task, foreign sentence repetition task, temporal rhythm accuracy task, auditory judgment task, visual judgment task) and foreign-word learning. This thesis also explores whether there is a correlation between one’s brain responses to differing stimuli and a person’s ability to track the timing and order of items, as well as a person’s ability to learn new words. The results reveal that only the foreign sentence repetition task, using the same foreign language as the word learning task, significantly predicts one’s ability to accurately learn foreign words. The results did not show any significant interaction between one’s neural responses and rhythm or word learning. These results suggest that the ability to maintain the order of items in memory aids word learning, but further exploration is required with regards to non-verbal stimuli and neural responses. It is important to investigate individual differences in repetition tasks that require short-term memory, as this will aid in understanding normal language development and language acquisition.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:mcmaster.ca/oai:macsphere.mcmaster.ca:11375/25801 |
| Date | January 2020 |
| Creators | DeBorba, Erin |
| Contributors | Service, Elisabet, Cognitive Science of Language |
| Source Sets | McMaster University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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