Incidental Auditory Category Training for Language Learning (IACT)

Examining the Impact of Non-linguistic Incidental Auditory Category Training on Adult Language Acquisition

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.

Study Overview

• Status: Terminated
• Conditions: Healthy; Language
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: Incidental training; Behavioral: Explicit training; Behavioral: Classroom training; Behavioral: Classroom and incidental training; Behavioral: Classroom and explicit training

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.

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 106
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• United States
  • Pennsylvania
    • Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States, 15213
      • Carnegie Mellon University

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 18 years and older (Adult, Older Adult)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

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

Exclusion Criteria:

• Younger than 18, loss of hearing

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Basic Science
• Allocation: Non-Randomized
• Interventional Model: Single Group Assignment
• Masking: None (Open Label)

Number of Arms

6

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Incidental training; Participants undergo novel non-linguistic incidental category learning training.	Behavioral: Incidental training; Training involving non-speech sounds embedded in a video-game.
Experimental: Explicit training; Participants undergo traditional explicit language learning.	Behavioral: Explicit training; Training involving explicit sound and category information
No Intervention: No training; Participants do not undergo any training.
Experimental: Classroom training; Participants take part in structured classroom learning.	Behavioral: Classroom training; Structured adult classroom language training.
Experimental: Classroom and incidental training; Participants take part in structured classroom learning and incidental learning.	Behavioral: Classroom and incidental training; Both classroom and incidental training.
Experimental: Classroom and explicit training; Participants take part in structured classroom learning and explicit learning.	Behavioral: Classroom and explicit training; Both classroom and explicit training.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Change in Sensitivity (D-prime) to Novel Speech Sounds After 2 Months of Training	Each participant's 96 auditory discrimination data points at Pre-test and Post-test, respectively, were reduced to one sensitivity score: d-prime (d': hits minus false alarms). This transformation takes into account response bias and approaches a normal distribution. A higher score represents greater sensitivity. The difference in scores from pre- to post-test represents the change.	Pre-test (baseline) and immediately after 2 months of training.
Change in Auditory Category Learning Accuracy After 2 Months of Training	Each participant's 96 auditory categorization data points at Pre-test and Post-test, respectively, were turned into a mean of the correct answers. The difference between the two accuracy scores represents the mean change in accuracy.	Pre-test (baseline) and immediately after 2 months of training.
Novel Auditory Word Learning Accuracy After 2 Months of Training	At post-test, participants did a three day novel word learning task. Their 48 word identification data points on the first and third days, respectively, were turned into a mean correct score. The difference in scores from Day 1 to Day 3 represents the change in mean novel word learning accuracy.	Immediately after 2 months of training.

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Word Recognition Accuracy in Unrelated Language 3 Months After Training	Three months after training, participants were scheduled to learn words in an unrelated language. Their mean accuracy would be calculated.	3 months post-intervention

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Carnegie Mellon University
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Seth Wiener, PhD, Carnegie Mellon University

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): September 1, 2019
• Primary Completion (Actual): November 1, 2022
• Study Completion (Actual): January 10, 2023

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: August 6, 2020
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: August 10, 2020
• First Posted (Actual): August 11, 2020

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): July 24, 2024
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: July 23, 2024
• Last Verified: July 1, 2024

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: Cognition; Learning; Speech
• Other Study ID Numbers: 1R03HD099382-01 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: YES
• IPD Plan Description: Participants who have agreed to share their behavioral responses and speech recordings will have their data anonymized and shared via a free, open platform like OpenScience after completion of the study.
• IPD Sharing Time Frame: Anonymized behavioral data available permanently via the Open Science Framework.
• IPD Sharing Access Criteria: Available via Open Science Framework link
• IPD Sharing Supporting Information Type: ANALYTIC_CODE

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No