May 16 ====== Gomez/Gerken:2000 ----------------- How does understanding the difference between pattern-based and category-based abstraction contribute to our knowledge of infants' language development? Additionally, why recognizing the limitations of infants' abstraction abilities is important? How did Gómez and Gerken test infants' understanding of word order? With respect to the acquisition of linguistic structure (syntactic structure in this case, I assume), Gómez and Gerken mention that an open question to be investigated is whether such learning is rule-based or associational in nature. Are there any studies investigating this, and if so, how can this difference be tested? In how far can studies that are conducted with the help of artificial languages be seen as representative for the acquisition of natural language, even though the conditions under which infants learn those two types of language are very different? (E.g. a child is confronted with natural language since its birth, but only for a short time frame with a given artificial language) How reliable are experiments conducted on infants in general? The behavior of infants is probably difficult to interpret and there are various factors that are independent of the given task which might still influence a child's response. In the 'Learning in utero' section, the author mentions that newborns show a preference for their mother's voice. Does this imply that they would learn words spoken by their mother more quickly than those spoken by other voices? "We must exercise caution in interpreting children's early utterances as evidence for or against the linguistic representations they do and do not entertain." (p.185) Does this suggest that infants might use words even without understanding their meanings? How can we test when infants begin to map word forms to meanings? The paper primarily focuses on the mechanisms involved in infant artificial language learning within controlled experimental settings. However, how might the findings from these experiments translate to real-world language acquisition scenarios? Doesn't this research design fail to consider the potential roles of social interaction, cultural context, etc (factors outside the language itself)? While the paper discusses the use of artificial languages to study specific characteristics of infant language learning, what are the ethical implications of conducting such studies on infants? How might researchers address concerns related to consent, potential long-term effects, and the broader societal implications of manipulating infants' linguistic environments in controlled experiments? I would assume that in natural language acquisition a combination of meaning and context (e.g. gestures, images etc.) along with specific patterns and forms affect language learning overall. So, are experiments with artificial languages sufficient in explaining language learning or should they be reinforced with supplementary studies which will complement their results in a way? Gomez, Gerken (2000) quote that "..suggesting that they apply statistical learning to linguistic and non-linguistic stimuli alike". Does this mean that the statistical learning is governed by a single mechanism that addresses both linguistic and non-linguistic stimuli in the same fashion? Does the ability to acquire L2 also depend on the efforts of a learner to use it in a natural setting?