Title:

Incidental Learning of Mandarin Tones via Flanker Task

Learning to differentiate and classify non-native speech sounds is a core component of second-language acquisition (SLA). Research in the traditional psychology of language has focused on explicit learning through structured instruction and explicit feedback. Nevertheless, these methods fail to capture how learners adjust to a new language in naturalistic environments. On the other hand, incidental learning provides an adequate framework for understanding language learning within the real world, whereby knowledge is acquired unconsciously without direct teaching—provides a more suitable framework for understanding language learning in real-world contexts. The proposed study investigates whether incidental learning might provide a good context for learning second-language speech categories, namely, Mandarin tone categories for native monolingual English listeners, during a cognitively demanding Flanker task. There are two critical uses for embedding the Mandarin tones within the Flanker task. The first one would be that this paradigm allows investigating whether auditory categories, such as Mandarin tones, may be incidentally learned while participants perform a challenging visual attention task. This setup is similar to real-life scenarios where people mostly learn by exposure and an attentional spotlight rather than by explicit instruction. Second, the current paradigm puts into new perspective how auditory cues might enhance attentional control by highlighting the interrelation of language processing and cognitive control mechanisms. The present approach represents a unique possibility to study tone acquisition in naturalistic situations where learners are distracted and do not give their full attention to the auditory task.

Name

Comment*

Comments are viewable only by submitter

Captcha*