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Marcela Peña,1Luca L. Bonatti,12Marina Nespor,3Jacques Mehler14*
Learning a language requires both statistical
computations to identify words in speech and algebraic-like
computations todiscover higher level (grammatical) structure. Here we
show thatthese computations can be influenced by subtle cues in the
speechsignal. After a short familiarization to a continuous speech
stream,adult listeners are able to segment it using powerful
statistics,but they fail to extract the structural regularities
includedin the stream even when the familiarization is greatly
extended.With the introduction of subliminal segmentation cues,
however,these regularities can be rapidly captured.
1 International School for Advanced Studies,
Trieste, Italy.
2 University of Paris VIII at Saint
Denis, France.
3 University of Ferrara, Italy.
4 Laboratoire de Science Cognitive et
Psycholinguistique, CNRS and EHESS, Paris, France.
*
To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail:
mehler{at}sissa.it
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