# Examining the impact of non-linguistic Incidental auditory category training on adult language acquisition

> **NIH NIH R03** · CARNEGIE-MELLON UNIVERSITY · 2020 · $75,650

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY
Robust speech communication requires that listeners learn linguistically-relevant representations for stable
language regularities, such as the speech sounds (phonemes) that convey meaning. In an increasingly
multilingual society, as many as twenty percent of Americans accomplish this across multiple languages. Yet,
second language acquisition is especially challenging among adult language learners, for whom learning
typically involves explicit classroom instruction. Troublingly, research documents that instruction routinely
results in a `learning plateau' whereby language abilities stagnate or even atrophy despite continued
instruction. There is a need to establish effective new approaches to nudge adult language learners off this
plateau. This project integrates theoretical and methodological developments in auditory category learning
with approaches to classroom-based L2 instruction. Specifically, incidental category learning (in which learners'
attention is directed away from to-be-learned categories by an engaging videogame) taps into category
learning systems distinct from those engaged in more explicit learning. Moreover, incidental learning of
nonspeech sound categories leads to activation of putatively speech-selective cortex associated with speech
categorization, suggesting potential representational cross-talk. This guides the central hypothesis of the
project: incidental learning of nonspeech perceptual building block categories may provide a `back door' through
which to influence adult L2 learners' speech acquisition and to move them off the classroom learning plateau.
An intensive 8-week incidental training study with a 3-month retention interval will test the hypothesis (Aim
1). Comparison of incidental nonspeech training with explicit L2 speech training will assess whether this
cognitive `back door' may be more effective in promoting L2 speech perception and production than explicit
training with L2 speech and will determine the extent to which each interacts with classroom instruction in the
L2 (Aim 2). Far transfer and retention of incidental category learning will be established across measures that
extend beyond L2 categorization to speech production, word learning, and phonological representation (Aim
3). The results will reveal whether nonspeech, auditory categories sharing common perceptual dimensions
with second language categories scaffold L2 acquisition, the degree to which explicit instruction may support
or interfere with new auditory categories, whether incidental learning is retained after training, and whether
learning gains transfer to support other language-learning tasks. In blending empirical, methodological, and
theoretical advances from laboratory studies with explicit classroom learning it will be possible to determine
the interplay between incidentally-acquired nonlinguistic perceptual building block categories and an
emerging L2. This will advance important theoretical debates about the cros...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9998743
- **Project number:** 5R03HD099382-02
- **Recipient organization:** CARNEGIE-MELLON UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Seth Wiener
- **Activity code:** R03 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $75,650
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2019-08-17 → 2022-08-16

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9998743

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9998743, Examining the impact of non-linguistic Incidental auditory category training on adult language acquisition (5R03HD099382-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9998743. Licensed CC0.

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