Implicit learning and working memory in children Nadiia Denhovska - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Implicit learning and working memory in children

Nadiia Denhovska

ndenhovska@uclan.ac.uk

Implicit Learning

• Implicit learning is learning without awareness about the regularities

governing the material

• Leads to knowledge which it is difficult or impossible to access

consciously and/or to report verbally (Reber, 1993)

• Important for the acquisition of many skills
• First & second language (Kidd, 2012; Saffran et al., 1996)
• Reading and writing (Gombert, 2003)
• Social skills

How Children Learn

• Children learn implicitly
• Development of explicit knowledge

Development of Implicit Learning Abilities

• Develop in infancy/early childhood and remain stable throughout the

lifespan (Gomez & Gerken, 1999; Meulemans, Van der Linden, & Perruchet, 1998; Reber, 1993)

• Independent of age (Vinter & Perruchet, 2000)
• Independent of IQ
• Some evidence in support of developmental change
• Adults outperformed children (Thomas et al., 2004)
• Older or more cognitively advanced children showing larger learning effect

(Fletcher et al., 2000;Thomas & Nelson, 2001)

Working Memory Development

• Visuospatial Sketchpad
• Phonological Loop
• Central Executive
• Children younger than 7 years rely on

visuospatial sketchpad

• Older children tend to use the phonological loop

(Gathercole et al., 2004)

Factors Affecting Language Learning

Frequency

• L1: Abbot-Smith, Lieven, & Tomasello, 2004;

Lieven & Tomasello, 2008; Tomasello, 2003

• L2: . Ellis, 2002, 2006; Larsen-Freeman, 2010;

Robinson, 2005

• Type, token frequency

Working Memory

• L2 learning (Miyake & Friedman, 1998; Speciale,

Ellis, & Bywater, 2004) including grammatical gender (Kempe, Brooks, & Kharkhurin, 2010)

• Implicit learning (Conway, Baurnschmidt,

Huang, & Pisoni, 2010; Kaufman et al., 2010)

• ffline tasks: Tagarelli et al., 2011
• Production: Brooks & Kempe, 2013

Implicit learning of languages

• DeKeyser, 1995; Morgan-Short

et al., 2010; Rebuschat & Williams, 2012; Tagarelli et al., 2011

Production and comprehension

Brooks & Kempe, 2013; Hama & Leow, 2010

Working Memory and Learning

• Dogs have four legs LEGS
• Apples play football FOOTBALL
• MAB

Future Research

• Exploring the trajectory of development
• Testing children above 10 through adolescence up to the age of 16
• Using more sensitive measures and exploring neurocognitive

underpinnings of implicit learning

• Exploring implicit learning skills in atypically developing children
• Dyslexia
• ASD

Educational Implications

• Implicit, as well as explicit, learning abilities show increase with age

and cognitive maturation

• Incidental language learning in children is guided by examples rather

than rule-abstraction

• Frequency and individual differences in the capacity of working

memory appear to affect implicit learning

• In children, it is the frequency of specific items and memory for visual

information

• Questions or comments?