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Learning grammatical gender: The use of rules by novice learners

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 December 2012

NORA PRESSON ,
BRIAN MacWHINNEY  and
NATASHA TOKOWICZ
NORA PRESSON*
Affiliation:
Carnegie Mellon University
BRIAN MacWHINNEY
Affiliation:
Carnegie Mellon University
NATASHA TOKOWICZ
Affiliation:
University of Pittsburgh
*
ADDRESS FOR CORRESPONDENCE Nora Presson, Learning Research and Development Center, University of Pittsburgh, 3939 O'Hara Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15213. E-mail: presson@pitt.edu
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Abstract

Two experiments successfully trained novices to categorize French nouns by grammatical gender, resulting in high levels of performance after delay. Training with a frequent exemplar and training with a more diverse exemplar set led to equivalent learning. However, providing explicit rules with correctness feedback led to better generalization and retention than did correctness feedback alone or feature focusing without explicit rule information. This suggests that, at least for some grammar tasks, explicit information about form–function mappings improves learning. Moreover, the advantage of rule instruction was robust to testing and training under time pressure. Thus, rule instruction may be helpful even when speeded performance is required, supporting the prediction that practice leads to proceduralization of declarative grammatical knowledge.

Type
Articles
Information
Applied Psycholinguistics , Volume 35 , Issue 4 , July 2014 , pp. 709 - 737
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012 

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