SynthesisProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2018
Child first language and adult second language are both tied to general-purpose learning systems.
Synthesis in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 28 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
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Who cites it
28 citing papers in PubMed, 118 citations in OpenAlex.
- The Facilitation of Cognitive Procedures is not Dependent on Maintenance of Declarative Memory Elements.Europe's journal of psychology · 2026Article
- The cognitive science of language diversity: achievements and challenges.Cognitive processing · 2025Review
- Functional dissociation of the language network and other cognition in early childhood.Human brain mapping · 2024Article
- Distinguishable features of spontaneous speech in Alzheimer's clinical syndrome and healthy controls.Neuropsychology, development, and cognition. Section B, Aging, neuropsychology and cognition · 2024Article
- Procedural Memory Deficits in Preschool Children with Developmental Language Disorder in a Spanish-Speaking Population.Brain sciences · 2024Article
- Article
- Language Analytic Ability, Print Exposure, Memory and Comprehension of Complex Syntax by Adult Native Speakers.Journal of cognition · 2024Article
- Lexical Speech Features of Spontaneous Speech in Older Persons With and Without Cognitive Impairment: Reliability Analysis.JMIR aging · 2023Article
- The reliability of the serial reaction time task: meta-analysis of test-retest correlations.Royal Society open science · 2023Article
- Neural basis of implicit motor sequence learning: Modulation of cortical power.Psychophysiology · 2023Article
- Study protocol: a comprehensive multi-method neuroimaging approach to disentangle developmental effects and individual differences in second language learning.BMC psychology · 2022Article
- Neuropsychological Test Performance Among Native and Non-Native Swedes: Second Language Effects.Archives of clinical neuropsychology : the official journal of the National Academy of Neuropsychologists · 2022Article
- Contributions of common genetic variants to specific languages and to when a language is learned.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Language and nonlanguage factors in foreign language learning: evidence for the learning condition hypothesis.NPJ science of learning · 2021Article
- A New Memory Perspective on the Sentence Comprehension Deficits of School-Age Children With Developmental Language Disorder: Implications for Theory, Assessment, and Intervention.Language, speech, and hearing services in schools · 2021Review
- Examining Individual Differences in Language Learning: A Neurocognitive Model of Language Aptitude.Neurobiology of language (Cambridge, Mass.) · 2021Article
- A Daytime Nap Does Not Enhance the Retention of a First-Order or Second-Order Motor Sequence.Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2021Article
- Second Graders' Grapho-Motor Skill Learning and Verbal Learning: The Effects of Socio-Educational Factors.Frontiers in psychology · 2021Article
- Declarative Memory Predicts Phonological Processing Abilities in Adulthood.Frontiers in psychology · 2021Article
- Domain-General Learning and Memory Substrates of Reading Acquisition.Mind, brain and education : the official journal of the International Mind, Brain, and Education Society · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Do the mechanisms underlying language in fact serve general-purpose functions that preexist this uniquely human capacity? To address this contentious and empirically challenging issue, we systematically tested the predictions of a well-studied neurocognitive theory of language motivated by evolutionary principles. Multiple metaanalyses were performed to examine predicted links between language and two general-purpose learning systems, declarative and procedural memory. The results tied lexical abilities to learning only in declarative memory, while grammar was linked to learning in both systems in both child first language and adult second language, in specific ways. In second language learners, grammar was associated with only declarative memory at lower language experience, but with only procedural memory at higher experience. The findings yielded large effect sizes and held consistently across languages, language families, linguistic structures, and tasks, underscoring their reliability and validity. The results, which met the predicted pattern, provide comprehensive evidence that language is tied to general-purpose systems both in children acquiring their native language and adults learning an additional language. Crucially, if language learning relies on these systems, then our extensive knowledge of the systems from animal and human studies may also apply to this domain, leading to predictions that might be unwarranted in the more circumscribed study of language. Thus, by demonstrating a role for these systems in language, the findings simultaneously lay a foundation for potentially important advances in the study of this critical domain.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.