Word-internal segmental repetitions in lexical learning

词汇学习中的单词内部片段重复

• 批准号: 2712645
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of Edinburgh
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2022 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2712645
• 关键词: Word; internal; segmental; repetitions; lexical

My project aims to answer some fundamental questions on word learning. What makes a lexicon (the set of words in language) easier to learn? How does learning whole lexicons relate to learning individual words? How is lexical learning affected by the repetition of similar/identical sounds within words? My interest in these questions stems from a discrepancy revealed in recent studies between how word-internal repetition works in natural languages and what humans find easier to learn in experimental settings. Although word-internal consonant similarities are generally avoided by the languages of the world, in lab experiments words with repeated consonants are better learned than those with no repetitions. By contrast, it is cross-linguistically common for vowels within words to be similar, but repeated vowels do not confer a word learning advantage in the lab. Why would natural languages end up with repetition patterns that make words harder to learn? While previous research has typically focused on the effect of sound repetitions on individual word learning, I propose to investigate what happens when whole lexicons are considered. I hypothesise that words sharing similar consonants are more easily confused with each other than those sharing similar vowels. This would make lexicons with word-internal consonant repetitions/similarities harder to learn and contribute to explain the paradoxical mismatch between natural language design and word learning advantage. To test this idea and identify potential differences in the perception, memory storage, and processing of consonant- and vowel-matched words, I will carry out similarity judgement, recognition, and recall tasks using auditory stimuli from artificial lexicons.

我的项目旨在回答有关单词学习的一些基本问题。是什么使词典（语言中的单词集）更容易学习？学习整个词典与学习单词有何关系？词汇学习如何受单词中类似/相同声音的重复影响？我对这些问题的兴趣源于在单词内部重复如何以自然语言起作用与人类在实验环境中更容易学习的方法之间的差异。尽管世界语言通常避免了单词内部的辅音相似性，但在实验室实验单词中，具有重复辅音的单词比没有重复的辅音更好。相比之下，单词中的元音相似，在跨语言上很常见，但是重复的元音不会在实验室中赋予单词学习优势。为什么自然语言最终会以重复的模式使单词更难学习？尽管以前的研究通常集中在声音重复对单个单词学习的影响上，但我建议研究当考虑整个词典时会发生什么。我假设共享类似辅音的单词比共享类似元音的单词更容易与彼此混淆。这将使具有单词内部辅音重复的词典/相似性更难学习和贡献，以解释自然语言设计与单词学习优势之间的矛盾不匹配。为了测试这一想法并确定辅音和元音匹配单词的感知，记忆存储和处理的潜在差异，我将使用人工词典的听觉刺激执行相似性判断，识别和召回任务。