Impact of Passive Second Language Exposure on Word Segmentation and Word Mapping
Abstract
Research in statistical learning using artificial languages has suggested that passive exposure to linguistic patterns can guide word segmentation and word mapping. It is unknown whether this type of unsupervised learning can scale up to support these aspects of learning in a natural language. Our study exposed monolingual English speakers to either English or Italian podcasts for an hour daily for 21 days, collecting behavioural and EEG data during both the pre- and post-exposure period. Our behavioural measure tested if L2 exposure would lead to improved word mapping for words with high phonotactic probabilities. Our EEG measure tested whether the L2 exposure would improve word segmentation, as indexed by the TRF to word onsets. Neither of these measures detected significant changes in L2 processing as a function of passive exposure. Accounting for additional baseline acoustic features in the future may clarify the effects of L2 exposure on moment-by-moment L2 processing.