Auditory statistical learning in young children: the feasibility of a novel task and the role of attention and working memory

PURPOSE: Statistical learning is a mechanism that allows rapid learning without conscious effort. There is a significant gap in productive methodologies for measuring auditory linguistic statistical learning in children. Additionally, attention and working memory have been theorized to underlie this mechanism, but empirical evidence is mixed. The goal of this study was to develop an auditory linguistic statistical learning task with young children and examine the contribution of attention and working memory to outcomes on the learning task. METHOD: This was a quantitative, nonexperimental study. We developed our statistical learning task through iterative rounds of piloting with children (average age 6.25 years). After, we tested 50 5- and 6-year-old native English-speaking children with typical development on our statistical learning, attention, and working memory tasks. We used generalized linear mixed models to examine the results. RESULTS: Thirty children (about 60 %) scored above chance on the statistical learning task, and the group average was comparable or higher than what has been reported in extant literature with similar tasks. Results of the mixed models indicated that neither attention nor working memory significantly predicted children's outcomes on the statistical learning task. CONCLUSIONS: The method and results provide methodological insight into measuring statistical learning abilities in young children and add to the mixed empirical evidence in the literature on the role of attention and working memory on statistical learning outcomes. Methodological and theoretical interpretations of the results are discussed.