THE EFFECTS OF AWARENESS, CUE–OUTCOME TEMPORAL ORDER, AND OFFLINE CONSOLIDATION ON LEARNING NON-NATIVE PHONOLOGICAL CUES

Date

2026-3-13

Author

Yılmaz, Seyit Deniz

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Learning non-native phonological categories is known to be challenging and influenced by various factors. This study examined the effects of explicit awareness, temporal order of cues and outcomes, and offline consolidation on incidental learning of stress patterns by native Turkish speakers. An artificial language was constructed with two-syllable words in which stress patterns differentiated animacy. Because speakers of fixed-stress languages are typically less sensitive to certain stress cues, an active response task was employed during training to facilitate learning. Automatic response skill was assessed with a reaction-time task that manipulated the stress-to-semantic mapping. Subsequent judgment tests accompanied by awareness measures also evaluated both implicit and explicit knowledge of the target regularity. Results showed that learning was primarily driven by explicit awareness as participants categorized as unaware demonstrated no significant learning in either reaction-time measures or judgment tasks. In contrast, aware participants exhibited an RT-cost when the stress-to-semantic mapping was violated. They also performed well in judgment tests and reported relying mostly on explicit knowledge, with some indications of implicit knowledge. Critically, aware participants benefited from sleep, showing a higher RT-cost after sleep, whereas wakefulness had no comparable effect. However, this benefit emerged as a within-group improvement rather than a between-group contrast between sleep and awake conditions. Finally, temporal order analysis revealed that cue-outcome and outcome-cue orders did not result in significantly different learning performances although the former showed a slight numerical advantage. These results highlight the importance of cue saliency and awareness in the learning of non-native phonological categories.

Subject Keywords

Phonological learning, Stress patterns, Awareness, Temporal-Order of Cues and Outcomes, Offline Consolidation

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/118777

Collections

Graduate School of Social Sciences, Thesis