Incidental Auditory Category Training for Language Learning

NCT ID: NCT04509024

Last Updated: 2024-07-24

Basic Information

• Recruitment Status: TERMINATED
• Clinical Phase: NA
• Total Enrollment: 106 participants
• Study Classification: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Start Date: 2019-09-01
• Study Completion Date: 2023-01-10

Brief Summary

The overarching goal of the proposed research is to understand how human listeners learn speech categories. The project takes a prospective approach with adult second-language learners, blending empirical, methodological and theoretical advances from laboratory studies with explicit classroom instruction. The central hypothesis is that incidentally-acquired nonlinguistic perceptual building block categories may support speech perception and production in a second language. The project will advance important theoretical debates about the cross-talk between general auditory representations and speech categories and will provide a novel approach to nudging adult learners off learning plateau typically encountered in classroom instruction.

Detailed Description

Robust speech communication requires that listeners learn linguistically-relevant representations for stable language regularities, such as the speech sounds (phonemes) that convey meaning. In an increasingly multilingual society, as many as twenty percent of Americans accomplish this across multiple languages. Yet, second language acquisition is especially challenging among adult language learners, for whom learning typically involves explicit classroom instruction. Troublingly, research documents that instruction routinely results in a 'learning plateau' whereby language abilities stagnate or even atrophy despite continued instruction. There is a need to establish effective new approaches to nudge adult language learners off this plateau. This project integrates theoretical and methodological developments in auditory category learning with approaches to classroom-based L2 instruction. Specifically, incidental category learning (in which learners' attention is directed away from to-be-learned categories by an engaging videogame) taps into category learning systems distinct from those engaged in more explicit learning. Moreover, incidental learning of nonspeech sound categories leads to activation of putatively speech-selective cortex associated with speech categorization, suggesting potential representational cross-talk. This guides the central hypothesis of the project: incidental learning of nonspeech perceptual building block categories may provide a 'back door' through which to influence adult L2 learners' speech acquisition and to move them off the classroom learning plateau. An intensive 8-week incidental training study will test the hypothesis (Aim 1). Comparison of incidental nonspeech training with explicit L2 speech training will assess whether this cognitive 'back door' may be more effective in promoting L2 speech perception and production than explicit training with L2 speech and will determine the extent to which each interacts with classroom instruction in the L2 (Aim 2). The results will reveal whether nonspeech, auditory categories sharing common perceptual dimensions with second language categories scaffold L2 acquisition, the degree to which explicit instruction may support or interfere with new auditory categories, whether incidental learning is retained after training, and whether learning gains transfer to support other language-learning tasks. In blending empirical, methodological, and theoretical advances from laboratory studies with explicit classroom learning it will be possible to determine the interplay between incidentally-acquired nonlinguistic perceptual building block categories and an emerging L2. This will advance important theoretical debates about the cross-talk between general auditory representations and speech categories and will provide a novel approach to L2 pedagogy.

Conditions

Healthy; Language

Study Design

• Allocation Method: NON_RANDOMIZED
• Intervention Model: SINGLE_GROUP
• Primary Study Purpose: BASIC_SCIENCE
• Blinding Strategy: NONE

Study Groups

Incidental training

Participants undergo novel non-linguistic incidental category learning training.

Group Type: EXPERIMENTAL

Incidental training

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

Training involving non-speech sounds embedded in a video-game.

Explicit training

Participants undergo traditional explicit language learning.

Group Type: EXPERIMENTAL

Explicit training

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

Training involving explicit sound and category information

No training

Participants do not undergo any training.

Group Type: NO_INTERVENTION

No interventions assigned to this group

Classroom training

Participants take part in structured classroom learning.

Group Type: EXPERIMENTAL

Classroom training

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

Structured adult classroom language training.

Classroom and incidental training

Participants take part in structured classroom learning and incidental learning.

Group Type: EXPERIMENTAL

Classroom and incidental training

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

Both classroom and incidental training.

Classroom and explicit training

Participants take part in structured classroom learning and explicit learning.

Group Type: EXPERIMENTAL

Classroom and explicit training

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

Both classroom and explicit training.

Interventions

Incidental training

Training involving non-speech sounds embedded in a video-game.

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

Explicit training

Training involving explicit sound and category information

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

Classroom training

Structured adult classroom language training.

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

Classroom and incidental training

Both classroom and incidental training.

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

Classroom and explicit training

Both classroom and explicit training.

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

Eligibility Criteria

Inclusion Criteria

• 18 or older, normal hearing
• Native/non-native Chinese speakers

Exclusion Criteria

• Younger than 18, loss of hearing

• Minimum Eligible Age: 18 Years
• Eligible Sex: ALL
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes

Sponsors

Carnegie Mellon University

OTHER

Sponsor Role: lead

Responsible Party

Seth Wiener

Associate Professor

Responsibility Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

Principal Investigators

Seth Wiener, PhD

Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

Carnegie Mellon University

Locations

Carnegie Mellon University

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States

Countries

United States

Provided Documents

Document Type: Study Protocol and Statistical Analysis Plan

View Document

Document Type: Informed Consent Form

View Document

Other Identifiers

1R03HD099382-01

Identifier Type: NIH

Identifier Source: org_study_id

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