Reduced Implicit But Not Explicit Knowledge of Cross-Situational Statistical Learning in Developmental Dyslexia

Cognitive Science 47 (2023) e13325
© 2023 The Authors. Cognitive Science published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Cognitive Science
Society (CSS).
ISSN: 1551-6709 online
DOI: 10.1111/cogs.13325
Reduced Implicit but not Explicit Knowledge of

Cross-Situational Statistical Learning in Developmental
Dyslexia
Nitzan Kligler,a,b Chen Yu,c Yafit Gabaya,b
a
Department of Special Education, University of Haifa
b
Edmond J. Safra Brain Research Center for the Study of Learning Disabilities, University of Haifa
c
Department of Psychology, The University of Texas at Austin
Received 7 November 2022; received in revised form 13 July 2023; accepted 17 July 2023
Abstract
Although statistical learning (SL) has been studied extensively in developmental dyslexia (DD),
less attention has been paid to other fundamental challenges in language acquisition, such as cross-
situational word learning. Such investigation is important for determining whether and how SL pro-
cesses are affected in DD at the word level. In this study, typically developed (TD) adults and young
adults with DD were exposed to a set of trials that contained multiple spoken words and multiple pic-
tures of individual objects, with no information about word-referent correspondences provided within
a trial. Nonetheless, cross-trial statistical relations could be exploited to learn word-referent mappings.
The degree of within-trial reference uncertainty and the novelty of to-be-learned objects (novel or
familiar) were varied under different learning conditions. The results show that across all conditions,
young adults with DD were significantly impaired in their ability to exploit cross-trial regularities
in co-occurring visual–auditory streams to discover word-referent mappings. Observed impairments
were most pronounced when within-trial reference uncertainty was the highest. Subjective measures
of knowledge awareness revealed greater development of implicit but not explicit knowledge in the
TD group than in the DD group. Together, these findings suggest that the SL deficit in DD affects
fundamental language learning challenges at the word level and points to greater reliance on explicit
Funding information: This work was funded by the Israel Science Foundation (Grant 734/22) awarded to YG
and by the National Institutes of Health (Grant R01HD093792) awarded to CY.
Correspondence should be sent to Yafit Gabay/Nitzan Kligler, Department of Special Education, University of
Haifa, Mount Carmel, Haifa 31905, Israel. E-mail: ygabay@edu.haifa.ac.il, nitzantinsky@gmail.com
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs
License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use
is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.
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2 of 30 N. Kligler, C. Yu, Y. Gabay / Cognitive Science 47 (2023)
processes due to impaired implicit associative learning among individuals with DD. Such a deficit is
likely to influence spoken language acquisition, and in turn affect literacy skills, in people with DD.
Keywords: Developmental dyslexia; Cross-situational statistical learning; Statistical learning;

Referential ambiguity; Implicit–explicit knowledge
1. Introduction
The world surrounding us offers an abundance of statistical patterns that, once success-
fully recognized, can be used to guide behavior (Conway, 2020). The ability to detect and use
statistical patterns embedded in the environment is related to statistical learning (SL), which
has been shown to play a critical role in different aspects of development, especially in lan-
guage acquisition (Thiessen, Kronstein, & Hufnagle, 2013). Rapidly expanding research sug-
gests that listeners can utilize statistical regularities for segmenting words from fluent speech
(Saffran, Aslin, & Newport, 1996; Saffran, Johnson, Aslin, & Newport, 1999) and for dis-
covering which cues in their linguistic environment are important for making phonological
distinctions (Hayes-Harb, 2007; Yoshida, Pons, Maye, & Werker, 2010). The role of SL in
language acquisition has been further supported by evidence showing that individual differ-
ences in SL performance predict variability in various linguistic outcomes (Arciuli & Simp-
son, 2012; Misyak, Christiansen, & Tomblin, 2010; von Koss Torkildsen, Arciuli, & Wie,
2019).
Due to its essential role in typical language acquisition, SL has received considerable atten-
tion within the field of language disorders, among them developmental dyslexia (DD; for
reviews, see Arciuli & Conway, 2018; Lee, Cui, & Tong, 2022; Schmalz, Altoè, & Mulatti,
2017; Singh & Conway, 2021). DD is a developmental language disorder characterized by
difficulty in acquiring reading, writing, and spelling skills despite adequate educational oppor-
tunities. Impairments among individuals with DD are not limited to the linguistic domain (for
a review, see Démonet, Taylor, & Chaix, 2004), leading researchers to postulate a domain-
general deficit in detecting statistical patterns in sensory input (Nicolson & Fawcett, 2010,
2019). Indeed, independent research investigations point to SL impairments in DD (Bal-
lan, Durrant, Manoach, & Gabay, 2023; Dobó, Lukics, Szőllősi, Németh, & Lukács, 2021;
Gabay, Schiff, & Vakil, 2012; Howard, Howard, Japikse, & Eden, 2006; Lum, Ullman, &
Conti-Ramsden, 2013; Stoodley, Harrison, & Stein, 2006). These impairments have been
demonstrated across a diverse range of SL paradigms (Ballan et al., 2023; Bogaerts, Szmalec,
Hachmann, Page, & Duyck, 2015; Dobó et al., 2021; Gabay, Vakil, Schiff, & Holt, 2015;
Lum et al., 2013) in different sensory modalities (Kahta & Schiff, 2019; Kligler & Gabay,
2023; Pavlidou & Williams, 2014; Pavlidou, Williams, & Kelly, 2009), in multiple domains
(Gabay et al., 2012; Hedenius, Lum, & Bölte, 2021), and with different developmental trajec-
tories (Kerkhoff, De Bree, De Klerk, & Wijnen, 2013; Tong, Leung, & Tong, 2019). Despite
some inconsistent results in the literature (for discussions, see Schmalz et al., 2017; van Wit-
teloostuijn, Boersma, Wijnen, & Rispens, 2017), a recent meta-analysis involving 59 studies
that compared SL in individuals with DD and typical readers across different SL learning
N. Kligler, C. Yu, Y. Gabay / Cognitive Science 47 (2023) 3 of 30
paradigms pointed to converging evidence of an apparent SL weakness in individuals with

DD (Lee et al., 2022).
This SL deficit has been shown to affect language learning tasks, such as speech segmen-
tation and speech categorization. Compared to typical readers, adults with DD are less able
to segment words from continuous input across speech and nonspeech stimuli, and simi-
lar observations have been made within the visual domain (Gabay, Thiessen, & Holt, 2015;
Kligler & Gabay, 2023; Sigurdardottir et al., 2017; Singh, Walk, & Conway, 2018; Tong,
Zhang, & He, 2020; but also see van Witteloostuijn, Boersma, Wijnen, & Rispens, 2019). Fur-
thermore, individuals with DD exhibit reduced sensitivity to the distributional frequency of
speech cues, compared to typical readers (Vandermosten, Wouters, Ghesquière, & Golestani,
2019), including reduced sensitivity to distributional information when complex nonspeech
sound categories are acquired incidentally (Gabay & Holt, 2015). The SL abilities of individ-
uals with DD were found to be correlated with their phonological and reading impairments
(Gabay & Holt, 2015; Gabay et al., 2015; Kligler & Gabay, 2023).
1.1. Cross-situational statistical learning (CSSL)

Language learning involves more than simply identifying word boundaries or categorizing
speech sounds. Another fundamental learning problem that listeners encounter at the word
level is the issue of correctly extracting possible meanings from extralinguistic context and
mapping them to perceptual representations that have been formed and temporarily stored
(word-to-world mapping problem; Cunillera, Laine, Càmara, & Rodríguez-Fornells, 2010).
This word learning process is crucial in language acquisition, as it clearly underlies language
ability, that is, the ability to create conceptual representations linked to arbitrary sounds and
symbols. Word-to-world mapping is challenging because the number of mappings between
words and potential referents is infinite (the referential ambiguity problem; Quine, 1960).
Prior studies have shown that learners can reduce referential ambiguity by utilizing a vari-
ety of linguistic (Gleitman, 1990), social (Baldwin, 1993), and attentional cues (Smith &
Samuelson, 2006), as well as by accumulating evidence across individual ambiguous expo-
sures through a process known as CSSL (Smith & Yu, 2008) in which learners take advantage
of the distributional properties of both visual and auditory information. In a CSSL experi-
ment, learners typically perceive a set of potential candidates when they hear a word. A single
exposure is insufficient to identify the correct word–object mapping. Rather, by combining
information across multiple exposures, listeners can determine the more likely referent by
integrating multiple candidate sets over time. Ample evidence shows that infant (Smith & Yu,
2008), child (Suanda, Mugwanya, & Namy, 2014), and adult listeners (Roembke & McMur-
ray, 2016; Yu & Smith, 2007) are capable of accumulating statistical evidence across indi-
vidually ambiguous learning contexts with multiple novel words and multiple novel objects.
Furthermore, prior research suggests a relationship between CSSL and language-related skills
(Hu, 2017; McGregor et al., 2022; McGregor, Rost, Arenas, Farris-Trimble, & Stiles, 2013;
Penaloza et al., 2017). Nevertheless, whether and how CSSL is affected in DD is currently
unclear.
Like other SL challenges, CSSL can occur incidentally without informing participants
about the relations between words and referents (Kachergis, Yu, & Shiffrin, 2010), thus lead-
ing some researchers to define these learning challenges as implicit learning (Kim, Seitz,
Feenstra, & Shams, 2009). Yet the extent to which CSSL and other fundamental SL phenom-
ena are entirely implicit remains a matter of debate (Shanks, 2003). One way of assessing the
“implicitness” of a learning process is to examine whether participants develop explicit (con-
scious)/implicit (unconscious) knowledge about statistical regularities. Implicit and explicit
knowledge are acquired differently, through the involvement of two different memory sys-
tems. The procedural memory system supports the acquisition of skills, habits, and stimulus–
response associations, whereas the declarative memory system is responsible for the acquisi-
tion of semantic and episodic knowledge (Packard & Knowlton, 2002). The declarative sys-
tem has been shown to underlie explicit knowledge, while implicit knowledge is supported
by both declarative and procedural memory systems (Ullman, Earle, Walenski, & Janacsek,
2020). These two memory systems are presumed to function differently in developmental
language disorders (Krishnan, Watkins, & Bishop, 2016). Consistent with the domain-general
account of language learning, the procedural deficit hypothesis suggests that language deficits
in DD likely arise from a selective impairment in procedural memory functions (Nicolson &
Fawcett, 2011; Ullman et al., 2020). This account is supported by the involvement of the
procedural memory system in language acquisition (Ullman, 2004). Furthermore, individuals
with dyslexia often demonstrate impairments in procedural and implicit learning tasks (Gabay
et al., 2023; Hedenius et al., 2013; Hedenius, Lum, & Bölte, 2020; Howard et al., 2006; Vicari,
Marotta, Menghini, Molinari, & Petrosini, 2003). Since SL is a form of learning that relies
more on the procedural memory system than on the declarative memory system (for a review,
see Sawi & Rueckl, 2019), it is possible that impaired SL in DD reflects procedural learning
deficiencies, yet this is still open to discussion (Bogaerts, Siegelman, & Frost, 2021).
One of the complexities in this debate is that SL tasks, like many other tasks considered
to be “procedural/implicit,” involve a mixture of implicit and explicit processes (Packard
& Goodman, 2013; Sun, Slusarz, & Terry, 2005), consistent with striatal and hippocampal
brain activity observed when people learn to extract statistical regularities (Durrant, Taylor,
Cairney, & Lewis, 2011; Karuza et al., 2013; Orpella, Mas-Herrero, Ripollés, Marco-Pallarés,
& de Diego-Balaguer, 2021; Schapiro, Turk-Browne, Norman, & Botvinick, 2016). Hence, an
independent assessment of implicit and explicit knowledge during an SL task may contribute
to this discussion. If impaired SL in DD reflects a procedural memory dysfunction, people
with DD will be less likely to develop implicit representations than typically developed (TD)
readers, whereas their explicit representations should be similar to or even more enhanced
than those of TD learners. Measures of knowledge awareness may therefore provide a better
understanding of the cognitive mechanisms involved in SL among people with DD and of the
nature of the resulting knowledge.
1.2. Measuring implicit and explicit knowledge

Knowledge awareness can be accessed in several ways, for example, by verbal reports or
direct (free generation tasks) and indirect (assessing performance) tests (Dienes & Seth, 2010;
Rebuschat, 2013). Among these approaches, a well-established way of dissociating conscious

and unconscious processes is to collect subjective measures of awareness (confidence ratings).
Two measures commonly used to assess unconscious/conscious knowledge are the guessing
score and the zero correlation score (Dienes, Altmann, Kwan, & Goode, 1995). According
to the first criterion (guessing score), knowledge is below the subjective threshold of con-
sciousness when performance is above chance in situations in which participants state they
were guessing. According to the second criterion (zero-correlation criterion), performance
is based on conscious knowledge if participants are more confident of their correct choices
than of their errors. Another criterion is based on signal detection theory (Kunimoto, Miller,
& Pashler, 2001). According to this approach, correct choices made with high confidence
can be classified as hits, while incorrect choices made with high confidence can be classified
as false alarms. Then, a Type II d’ can be computed to represent participants’ awareness of
their own performance. If participants are aware of the knowledge they used to make a choice,
they presumably believe their choices are correct and should respond with high confidence. In
contrast, if participants are unaware of their knowledge, they will randomly assign high- and
low-confidence ratings to correct and incorrect choices. An important feature of this method
is that the use of signal detection analysis ensures that the measure’s sensitivity is not influ-
enced by the participants’ own report criteria and is independent of response bias (Tunney
& Shanks, 2003). The use of such types of subjective measures of awareness has shown that
SL and other SL-related phenomena, such as CSSL, involve the development of explicit and
implicit knowledge (Bertels, Franco, & Destrebecqz, 2012; Franco, Cleeremans, & Destre-
becqz, 2016; Hamrick, Rebuschat, Rebuschat, & Williams, 2012). Even though SL has been
studied extensively in DD, the nature of the resulting knowledge has rarely been assessed.
1.3. The present study

The purpose of the present research was to investigate the ability of young adults with DD
to make word-referent mappings and learn word meanings under diverse levels of ambiguity
and uncertainty, resembling the way word learning occurs in real-world learning environ-
ments. CSSL plays a critical role in language acquisition. Hence, CSSL impairments are
likely to contribute to language deficits observed in language disorders (Ahufinger, Guerra,
Ferinu, Andreu, & Sanz-Torrent, 2021; McGregor et al., 2022). If SL deficits in DD (Lee et al.,
2022; Nicolson & Fawcett, 2019; Singh & Conway, 2021) also extend to the word level, we
can expect that TD readers will outperform readers with DD during CSSL. If people with DD
have problems in learning cross-situational statistical regularities, we can expect their perfor-
mance to deteriorate as SL challenges increase. To explore this possibility, we examined a
CSSL task in young adults with DD and TD, while manipulating the SL challenge by varying
the degree of within-trial ambiguity as in prior research (Yu & Smith, 2007). We hypothesized
that people with DD would perform worse than TD learners when SL challenges increase (i.e.,
when within-trial ambiguity is highest).
A second aim of the present study was to determine what kind of representations (implicit
vs. explicit) are acquired by participants with DD and TD readers when they learn the meaning
of words cross-situationally. This examination is particularly important to determine whether
a procedural memory function plays a role in the SL impairments observed in DD, based
on the notion that individuals with DD are more likely to rely on explicit learning strate-
gies to overcome their implicit learning impairments (Nicolson & Fawcett, 1990; Ullman &
Pullman, 2015). This issue has been rarely studied in DD using subjective measures of aware-
ness and has the potential to reveal valuable information about the type of representations
acquired by individuals with DD during SL processes. In the present study, we asked par-
ticipants to provide confidence judgments of their decisions to assess their development of
explicit and implicit knowledge in the context of CSSL (Franco et al., 2016). If a procedural
memory dysfunction contributes to SL impairments in DD (Nicolson & Fawcett, 1990; Ull-
man & Pullman, 2015), we expect to observe differences in the development of implicit but
not explicit knowledge across the two groups.
Our final aim was to examine how CSSL in DD is affected in second-language-like
(i.e., learning new words for familiar objects) and first-language-like situations (i.e., learn-
ing new words for novel objects; Prehn-Kristensen et al., 2011; Yu & Smith, 2007). Given
that direct word-to-concept mappings are less probable during the early phases of learning
words in a second language but rather are based on word-to-word associations (Hernan-
dez, Li, & MacWhinney, 2005; Kroll & Stewart, 1994), the distinction between familiar and
novel objects is likely to matter. We used novel objects that learners had never seen before
(Experiment 1) and familiar objects with known semantic categories (Experiment 2) as poten-
tial referents to examine possible group differences in the context of learning challenges that
mimic second-language or first-language situations. People with DD struggle to learn native
and second languages (Di Betta & Romani, 2006; Schneider, 2012; Sparks, Ganschow, &
Pohlman, 1989). If impaired SL processes contribute to these difficulties, impairments in
CSSL should be observed under both first- and second-language conditions.
2. Experiment 1
2.1. Methods
2.1.1. Participants
The research sample consisted of two groups, a group of young adults with DD (N =
34) and a TD group (N = 34), with an age range of 18–33 years. All participants were
monolingual Hebrew speakers with no known hearing, neurological, linguistic, attentional,
or intellectual impairments, and all came from families of middle to high socioeconomic
status. The DD group was recruited mainly through the Yahel Learning Disabilities Cen-
ter at Haifa University in Israel. The presence of a comorbid neurodevelopmental disorder
such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), a specific language impairment, or
any sensory or neurological disability was an exclusion criterion. The inclusion criteria for
the DD group were: (1) a formal diagnosis of DD by a qualified psychologist; (2) a score
of at least one standard deviation below the average of local norms on tests of phonologi-
cal decoding (nonword reading). Since there are no standardized reading tests for adults in
Hebrew, the selection was based on local norms acquired from an independent sample, using
similar criteria as in other studies conducted with Hebrew readers with dyslexia (Weiss,
Katzir, & Bitan, 2016). Scores of one standard deviation below the mean of the local norms
were chosen following the standard practice in the Hebrew literature (Breznitz & Misra, 2003;
Shany & Breznitz, 2011); (3) lack of attentional problems (according to the Adult ADHD
Self-Report Scale [ASRS]; Konfortes, 2010). Based on these criteria, one participant with
DD was excluded from the final sample. The TD group included participants who had no
trouble with reading (e.g., at or above the inclusion criteria of the DD group on the nonword
reading test) and were at the same level of cognitive ability as the DD group as measured by
the Similarities subset of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (Wechsler, 1997). The Insti-
tutional Review Board at the University of Haifa approved the study, which was conducted
in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki, with written informed consent provided by
all participants. Participants received compensation for their participation in the study (120
Israeli shekels, equivalent to approximately $30).
2.1.2. Cognitive/language batteries

Participants underwent a series of cognitive tests designed to evaluate their cognitive abil-
ity (Similarities subset), verbal short-term memory (digit span test; Wechsler, 1997), rapid
automatized naming skills (i.e., RAN tests; Breznitz & Misra, 2003), phonological process-
ing (phoneme segmentation, phoneme deletion, and spoonerism), reading skills (Shatil, 1995,
1997), and attentional functions (ASRS; Konfortes, 2010). This examination was included to
ensure that the TD and DD groups differed in reading and phonological skills but not in atten-
tion or cognitive abilities. Table 1 provides details of these tasks. The participants’ perfor-
mance on these tests is summarized in Table 2. Results indicate that the groups did not differ
in age or cognitive abilities. However, compared to the TD group, the DD group displayed
a reading disability profile compatible with the symptomatology of DD. This group differed
significantly from the TD group on both rate and accuracy measures of word reading and
decoding skills. Moreover, the DD group demonstrated deficits in the three key phonological
domains: phonological processing (spoonerism, phoneme segmentation, phoneme deletion),
verbal short-term memory (digit span), and rapid naming (rapid automatized naming).
2.1.3. Stimuli and design

The task and stimuli were all adapted from Yu and Smith (2007; Experiment 1). The stim-
uli were slides containing pictures of uncommon objects taken from the Novel Object and
Unusual Name database (Horst & Hout, 2016) paired with auditorily presented pseudowords.
The pseudowords were recorded by a female native Hebrew speaker and contained all the
Hebrew consonants and vowels. The words were based on templates characteristic of the
Hebrew language, and all had the same stress pattern (milra, i.e., stress on the final syllable),
which is common in Hebrew.
Each condition included 54 unique objects and 54 unique pseudowords divided into three
sets of 18 words and referents. Training trials were generated by randomly pairing each word
with a picture, and the learner had to discover these word–picture pairs. In each of the three
training conditions, different numbers of words and referents were presented within a learning
trial. The 2 × 2 condition contained two words and two pictures (see Fig. 1a for illustration);
Table 1
Psychometric tests
Ability Test Description

8 of 30
Intellectual ability Similarities In this task, participants are asked how two words are alike/similar
Wechsler Adult
Intelligence Scale
(WAIS-III; Wechsler,
1997)
Verbal short-term memory Digit Span Wechsler Adult In this task, participants are required to recall the numbers presented auditorily in
Intelligence Scale the order they were presented by the examiner. The maximum total raw score
(WAIS-III; Wechsler, is 28. Task administration is discontinued after failure to recall two trials with
1997) a similar number of digits. The test reliability coefficient is 0.9
Decoding 1-min test of words and These tests aim to assess reading skills. The 1-min test of words contains
1-min test of nonwords nonvowelized words of an equivalent level of complexity. The 1-min test of
(Shatil, 1995) nonwords contains increasingly complex vowelized nonwords. Each test
requires the participant to read aloud as quickly and accurately as possible
within 1 min. The maximum raw score for the 1-min test of words is 168. The
maximum raw score for the 1-min test of nonwords is 86
Phonological processing Phoneme deletion In this test, participants are required to repeat nonwords without a specific
(Breznitz & Misra, 2003) phoneme as rapidly as possible. The nonwords are presented auditorily and
vary in complexity, with a maximum total raw score of 25
Phoneme segmentation test This measure assesses the participant’s ability to break a word into its component
(Breznitz & Misra, 2003) phonemes. For example, the word fo has two phonemes /f/ /o/. The maximum
raw score is 16
Spoonerism task Participants are required to switch the first syllables of two word pairs and then to
(developed by Peleg & synthesize the segments to provide new words. The maximum raw score is 12
Ben-Dror)
Naming skills Rapid automatized naming Participants are required to orally name visually presented items as rapidly as
N. Kligler, C. Yu, Y. Gabay / Cognitive Science 47 (2023)
(RAN) possible. The exemplars are drawn from a constant category (RAN colors,
(Breznitz & Misra, 2003) RAN categories, RAN numerals, and RAN letters). This requires retrieval of a
familiar phonological code for each stimulus and coordination of phonological
and visual (color) or orthographic (letter) information quickly on time. The
reliability coefficient of these tests ranges from 0.98 to 0.99
Attention Adult attention deficit An 18-item questionnaire based on the Diagnositic and Statistical Manual of
hyperactivity disorder Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) criterion for identifying ADHD in adults. The
(ADHD) Self-Report questions refer to the past 6 months. The ASRS rating scale includes 0–5
Scale (ASRS) measure rating (very often = 5 points, often = 4 points, sometimes = 3 points, rarely =
2 points, never = 1 point). A total score of more than 51 points is used to
identify ADHD
Table 2
Demographic and psychometric data of the TD and DD groups—Experiment 1
Measurement TD Group M (SD) DD Group M (SD) t-Value p

Age 24.23 (1.94) 25.21 (3.12) −1.31 .19
Decoding
Oral words recognition 107.79 (15.29) 68.91 (22.76) 8.14 .00
(accuracy)
(speed)
Oral nonwords 60.58 (8.75) 26.94 (8.72) 15.63 .00
recognition (accuracy)
Oral nonwords 64.97 (8.54) 42.70 (9.94) 9.75 .00
recognition (speed)
Naming skills
Naming letters 21.45 (2.85) 25.27 (4.17) −4.33 .00
Naming objects 32.55 (5.56) 40.55 (7.04) −5.12 .00
Naming numbers 17.33 (2.90) 21.61 (3.29) −5.58 .00
Naming colors 28.27 (5.21) 32.73 (6.43) −3.09 .00
Phonological
processing
Phoneme segmentation 72.82 (16.83) 123.21 (59.99) −4.64 .00
(time)
Phoneme segmentation 15.21 (0.78) 11.94 (3.89) 4.73 .00
(accuracy)
Phoneme deletion (time) 102.82 (24.38) 176.52 (42.46) −8.64 .00
Phoneme deletion 23.58 (1.41) 18.48 (5.88) 4.83 .00
(accuracy)
Spoonerism (time) 122.48 (44.18) 272.55 (110.24) −7.25 .00
Spoonerism (accuracy) 18.64 (1.27) 14.03 (4.44) 5.72 .00
Short verbal working
memory
Digit span 12.00 (3.06) 9.67 (2.31) 3.49 .00
Intellectual abilities
Similarities 11.73 (2.46) 11.24 (1.98) 0.88 .38
Attentional functions
ASRS 35.03 (6.13) 33.06 (9.06) 1.02 .30
on each trial in the 3 × 3 condition, three words and three pictures were presented; and on each
trial in the 4 × 4 condition, four words and four pictures were presented. No indication was
given as to which picture went with which word. Each trial began with a simultaneous visual
presentation of the referents on a computer screen. Words were then presented auditorily via
the computer’s speakers. There was no systematic relationship between the temporal order of
spoken names and the spatial location of the referents on the screen.
Individual trials in the three conditions were formed by selecting two, three, or four
word-referent pairs from the 18 pairs of word referents. Each word and each referent were
presented six times in each condition, for a total of 54, 36, and 27 trials in the 2 × 2, 3 ×
Fig. 1. (a) Learning trials in a cross-situational statistical learning (SL) task in which the learners hear two words
while viewing two objects. Participants are not informed which word is mapped to which object, creating a referen-
tially ambiguous situation, but they know that statistically there are four possible mappings. As learners encounter
more and more learning situations, eventually the correct mapping that the object is called Argel will obtain the
strongest association because the label, and its correct referent are likely to co-occur more consistently than other
pairs. (b) An example of a test trial in which learners are required to choose which of four objects is associated
with the word. (c) Type of objects used in Experiments 1 and 2.
3, and 4 × 4 conditions, respectively. Because multiple words and referents were presented
in each trial, the learner may have experienced spurious associations that make learning from
these ambiguous individual trials difficult. Specifically, on average, each word co-occurred
with 5.09 incorrect referents in the 2 × 2 condition, 8.78 incorrect referents in the 3 × 3
condition, and 12.22 incorrect referents in the 4 × 4 condition. These numbers reflect within-
trial ambiguity in the three conditions. During training, the probability of the correct referent
being given its name, p(a|A), was 1.0 in all conditions. In contrast, the average probability of
irrelevant but co-occurring referents was .205, .231, and .247 in the 2 × 2, 3 × 3, and 4 × 4
conditions, respectively. For example, in the 4 × 4 condition, all the spurious co-occurrences
were first counted (in each trial, and for each item, there were three nonreferents in this con-
dition), resulting in an array of 18 cells, with the target referent co-occurring with the word
six times. Incorrect referent probability was calculated by dividing the number of nonreferent
co-occurrences by the number of target referent co-occurrences (in this case six). This pro-
cedure was conducted for each object and averaged across all 17 incorrect items. Despite the
considerable differences in within-trial uncertainty across the conditions, the strength of the
spurious correlations varied only moderately among them. Across the conditions, the number
of repetitions of each unique word and referent and the total time of the training session were
kept constant. Thus, the total number of trials differed across conditions, as did the duration
of each trial. The order of trials within each condition was determined randomly. The order
of the three conditions was counterbalanced across participants.
2.1.4. Procedure
A 14-inch screen was used to display the visual objects to be learned. Spoken words were
presented via headphones. Participants were instructed that their task is to learn words and
referents, but they were not told that there was only one referent per word. They were told
that multiple words and pictures would co-occur in each trial and that their task was to figure
out, across the trials, which word went with which picture. Training in each condition was
followed by a four-alternative forced-choice test of learning. In the test, participants heard one
word, were shown four pictures, and were asked to indicate which picture was associated with
the word they heard (see Fig. 1b). The target picture and the three foils were all taken from the
set of 18 training pictures. To assess the development of explicit and implicit knowledge, we
asked participants to use a binary scale to evaluate whether they had guessed or remembered
the missing object on each test trial. The experiment was controlled by MATLAB software
and lasted approximately half an hour. Participants completed the experiment in two sessions.
In the first session, they completed the background testing, and in the second session, they
completed the CSSL task.
2.2. Analysis
2.2.1. Power analysis
Previous research (Yu & Smith, 2007) using the CSSL task employed in the present study
revealed robust CSSL effects (Cohen’s d = 1.425). Furthermore, in the study by Gabay et al.
(2015), a large effect size was observed when comparing DD and control participants on
a similar but not identical SL task (partial eta squared of 0.25). Nevertheless, because no
previous study used the task employed in the current study with young adults with DD, we
erred on the side of caution in predicting only medium effect sizes (d = 0.5, f = 0.25, or
ηp 2 = 0.06) to test within- and between-variables interactions (e.g., an interaction between
within-trial variability and group). A power analysis (calculated using Gpower software; Faul,
Erdfelder, Lang, & Buchner, 2007) indicated that in order to detect within- and between-
group interaction effects, a total sample of 28 participants is needed to obtain statistical
power at a 0.80 level with an alpha of 0.05. Therefore, the total sample of 68 participants
(Experiment 1) and 55 participants (Experiment 2) provided adequate power.
2.2.2. Data analysis—CSSL performance

Learning in the CSSL task was indexed by the probability that participants would cor-
rectly choose the target picture after hearing a word during a test trial. A generalized linear
mixed-effects model was used, implemented in the lme4 package (Bates, Maechler, & Bolker,
2015) in R (Team, 2020) using a logistic linking function (Jaeger, 2008) to account for the
binominal nature of the dependent variable. Fixed effects were ambiguity level (2, 3, 4), lis-
tener group (TD vs. DD), and all interactions. The random-effects structure was composed
of random intercepts for participants and items (i.e., auditory word). This was the maximal
Table 3
Number of participants included in the confidence measures analyses in Experiment 1
Measure Level Number of DD Readers Number of TD Readers

Guessing score Level 2 12 3
Level 3 14 13
Level 4 20 23
Zero Correlation score Level 2A 21 30
(A/B) Level 2B 14 6
Level 3A 13 30
Level 3B 13 10
Level 4A 23 30
Level 4B 13 12
Type II d’ Level 2 22 16
Level 3 27 22
Level 4 20 30
random effect structure to which the model-fitting algorithm converged. After that, we esti-
mated the expected marginal means and conducted a contrast analysis using the emmeans
package (Lenth et al., 2019) to examine whether accuracy on the test was above chance level
(25%), with Bonferroni correction for multiple comparisons. The purpose of this was to deter-
mine whether learning occurred in each group. All contrast analyses were carried out on the
response scale using the delta method as implemented in the emmeans package.
2.2.3. Confidence judgments

Confidence judgments were measured with three scores: a guessing score, a zero-
correlation score, and a Type II d’ score as in prior research (Bertels et al., 2012). Not all
the participants contributed equally to all of three scores (see Tables 3 and 5). For example,
each measurement was only calculated for participants who provided the relevant confidence
response (e.g., the guessing score requires participants to indicate they were guessing on at
least some of the trials). Therefore, logistic/linear mixed effects models were used.
2.2.3.1. Guessing score to assess implicit knowledge: We first examined whether CSSL
occurred above chance on trials in which participants stated that they were guessing. Guessing
score was calculated as follows:
no. of CR while guessing
Guessing Score =
no. of CR while guessing + no. of WR while guessing
If participants are not completely aware of the knowledge used to make a choice, they are
expected to perform better when they state they are guessing than when they state they know.
Therefore, a guessing score above chance (0.25) indicates that participants developed implicit
knowledge. We first examined whether estimated group scores differed from chance ( = 0.25).
All contrast analyses were carried out on the response scale using the delta method as imple-
mented in the emmeans package. The guessing scores were then entered into a mixed effect
logistic regression model, with level (2, 3, 4), group, and their interaction as fixed effects, and
random intercepts for each participant, to determine whether the two groups differed in the
guessing score as a function of level.
2.2.3.2. Zero correlation score to assess explicit knowledge: Participants who are at least
partly aware of the information they used in the task are expected to be more confident about
their correct choices than about their incorrect choices. The zero correlation scores were
calculated as follows1 :
no. of CR while knowing
Zero correlation score A =
no. of CR while knowing + no. of CR while guessing
no. of WR while knowing

Zero correlation score B =
no. of WR while knowing + no. of WR while guessing
If participants performed better when they stated that they knew (Zero A) than when they
stated that they were guessing (Zero B), the result could be taken as an indication that partic-
ipants developed explicit knowledge. To test this, a linear mixed effect regression model was
used, with zero-correlation type (Zero A vs. Zero B), level (2, 3, 4), and group, and their inter-
actions as fixed effects and random intercepts for each participant. Here, we were interested
only in the main effects or interactions involving the zero-correlation type.
2.2.3.3. Type II d’ to assess participants’ awareness of their own performance: The Type
II d’ score was calculated as follows:
no. of CR while knowing
H IT =
Total CR
no. of WR while knowing

False Alarm =
Total WR
Type II d score = Z (HIT) − Z (FA)
Explicit knowledge should consistently result in Type II d’ values greater than zero and
implicit knowledge should result in Type II d’ values close to zero. Thus, a Type II d’ score
that differs from zero indicates the development of explicit knowledge. We first examined
whether the estimated Type II d’ scores for each group differed from zero using emmneas in
R. These scores were then entered into a linear mixed effect regression model, with level (2, 3,
4), group, and their interaction as fixed effects, and random intercepts for each participant, to
determine whether the two groups differed in their Type II d’ scores. Here, we were interested
only in the main effects or interactions involving the Type II d’ scores.
2.3. Results and discussion

2.3.1. CSSL performance
The results (see Fig. 2a) showed a significant effect of level [χ 2 (2) = 88.65, p < .001],
such that the probability of success decreased as a function of level as shown by a linear
Fig. 2. Proportion of correct responses on the cross-situational SL task in Experiment 1 (a) and Experiment 2 (b) as
a function of level (referential ambiguity) and group (typically developed [TD] vs. developmental dyslexia [DD]).
Note. Error bar represents one standard error.
contrast [z = −9.38, p < .001]. There was also a significant effect of group [χ 2 (1) = 23.45,
p < .001], such that the performance of the DD group (p = .72) was significantly poorer than
that of the TD group (p = .91). The two-way interaction of level and listener group was not
significant [χ 2 (2) = 1.82, p = .404]. Emmeans contrasts indicated that both the DD and TD
groups exhibited CSSL above the level of chance (25%; all Bonferroni adjusted ps < .0001).
2.3.2. Binary confidence judgments

2.3.2.1. Guessing score: The guessing score (see Fig. 3a) differed significantly from
chance (25%) for both the TD and the DD groups (both Bonferroni adjusted ps < .0009).
This pattern points to the development of implicit knowledge. Mixed effects model analy-
sis indicated a significant difference in the guessing score across the two groups [χ 2 (1) =
6.146, p = .013], such that the DD group (p = .37) exhibited a guessing score lower than
Fig. 3. Guessing scores in Experiment 1 (a) and Experiment 2 (b) as a function of level (referential ambiguity) and
group (TD vs. DD).
that of the TD group (p = .56). There was also a significant main effect of level [χ 2 (2) =
7.61, p = .02], such that the guessing score decreased as referential ambiguity increased
based on a linear contrast [z = −2.841, p = .004]. None of the remaining effects were
significant.
2.3.2.2. Zero correlation score: Only main effects or interaction with zero score type are
reported. A mixed effects model revealed a significant main effect of zero type score [χ 2
(1) = 48.62, p <.0001], with better performance on the CSSL task when participants stated
that they knew [p(ZeroA) = .83] than when they stated they were guessing [p(ZeroB) = .39],
indicating the development of explicit knowledge (see Fig. 4a). None of the other effects were
significant.
Fig. 4. Zero correlation scores in Experiment 1 (a) and Experiment 2 (b) as a function of level (referential ambi-
guity) and group (TD vs. DD).
2.3.2.3. Type II d’ score: The Type II d’ scores of the TD and DD groups differed sig-
nificantly from zero (both Bonferroni adjusted ps < .0001), pointing to the development of
explicit knowledge (see Fig. 5a). Mixed model analysis did not reveal any main effects or
interactions when the Type II d’ scores of the two groups were compared as a function of
referential ambiguity (all p > .11).
The results of Experiment 1 show that both DD and TD participants can use statistical
information to learn new words as indicated by their above chance CSSL performance. Yet
people with DD do this less effectively than TD participants, regardless of the level of ref-
erential ambiguity. Analysis of the confidence ratings revealed that both groups developed
explicit and implicit knowledge about word-referent pairs, yet implicit knowledge was devel-
oped to a greater extent in the TD group than in the DD group. When they believed they
Fig. 5. Type II d’ scores in Experiment 1 (a) and Experiment 2 (b) as a function of level (referential ambiguity)
and group (TD vs. DD).
were guessing, TD participants were more likely to perform better on the CSSL task than DD
participants.
3. Experiment 2
In the second experiment, we aimed to determine whether CSSL impairments in DD

under conditions that mimic learning in native-language situations (association between novel
phonological words and novel objects) also extend to second-language-like situations (asso-
ciation between novel word labels and pre-existing word semantic relations). Unlike Exper-
iment 1, in this experiment, we used familiar objects as referents. As language acquisition
Table 4
Demographic and psychometric data of the DD and TD groups—Experiment 2
Measurement TD Group M (SD) DD group M (SD) t-Value p

Age 24.23 (1.92) 25.33 (3.21) −1.40 .17
Decoding
(accuracy)
(speed)
Oral nonwords recognition 62.26 (9.59) 27.95 ()7.90 13.76 .00
(accuracy)
Oral nonwords recognition 66.06 (9.35) 42.32 (10.51) 8.65 .00
(speed)
Naming skills
Naming letters 21.26 (2.95) 26.00 (4.61) −4.55 .00
Naming objects 32.74 (5.42) 41.45 (7.51) −4.90 .00
Naming numbers 17.42 (2.94) 22.41 (3.14) −5.91 .00
Naming colors 27.87 (5.20) 33.41 (6.85) −3.34 .00
Phonological processing
Phoneme segmentation (time) 72.68 (16.39) 107.41 (31.97) −5.17 .00
Phoneme segmentation 15.26 (0.77) 12.14 (4.03) 4.12 .00
(accuracy)
Phoneme deletion (time) 99.35 (20.01) 173.36 (41.58) −8.62 .00
Phoneme deletion (accuracy) 23.81 (0.98) 17.64 (6.71) 5.06 .00
Spoonerism (time) 122.32 (45.62) 260.23 (125.12) −5.64 .00
Spoonerism (accuracy) 18.68 (1.27) 14.05 (4.81) 5.12 .00
Short verbal working
memory
Digit span 12.10 (2.98) 9.23 (2.42) 3.72 .00
Intellectual abilities
Similarities 11.77 (2.52) 11.32 (2.21) 0.68 .49
Attentional functions
ASRS 35.35 (5.90) 34.19 (9.61) 0.54 .59
difficulties in DD are not limited to native language (Di Betta & Romani, 2006; Schnei-
der, 2012; Sparks et al., 1989), we predicted that the performance of the DD group would
be impaired relative to that of TD participants even when the references are highly familiar
objects.
3.1. Methods
3.1.1. Participants
31 TD vs. 22 DD participants (51 of them had also participated in Experiment 1) were
participated in the Experiment 2. The inclusion and exclusion criteria were similar to those
of Experiment 1. Participants’ performance on the cognitive/linguistic tests is summarized in
Table 4.
Table 5
Number of participants included in the confidence measures analyses of Experiment 2
Measure Level Number of DD Readers Number of TD Reader

Guessing score Level 2 2 0
Level 3 12 6
Level 4 12 10
Zero Correlation score (A/B) Level 2A 32 34
Level 2B 19 6
Level 3A 33 21
Level 3B 13 18
Level 4A 20 31
Level 4B 21 27
Type II d’ Level 2 19 8
Level 3 21 16
Level 4 20 24
3.1.2. Stimuli and design

The stimuli and design resembled Experiment 1, except that the to-be-learned referents
were known objects. The names of the everyday objects used were lexical items from
five semantic categories (vehicles, animals, foods, clothes, and objects in daily use) that
are acquired early in language acquisition. The objects used as stimuli were color photos
presented on a white background. The pictures were taken from the Picture Naming Test
employed by Lieberman and Borovsky (2020). These pictures were rated at a high level of
familiarity.
3.1.3. Procedure
The procedure was similar to that used in Experiment 1. Most participants completed
Experiment 2 approximately five to six months after completing Experiment 1. The rest of
the participants completed only the second experiment.
3.1.4. Approach to analysis

The statistical analyses were identical to those conducted in Experiment 1. Table 5 repre-
sents the number of participants included in the confidence measure analyses. In addition, we
also conducted a cross-experiment comparison, entering the experiment as a variable in all
analyses to compare learning performance in the first- and second-language learning situa-
tions. Using the data from the two experiments, we also conducted within-subject analyses
to examine the potential correlations between the confidence measures and between CSSL
performance and confidence measures.
3.2. Results and discussion

3.2.1. Experiment 2—Familiar referents
CSSL performance: The results (see Fig. 2b) showed a significant effect of level [χ 2 (2)
= 46.72, p < .001], such that the probability of success decreased as a function of level, as
revealed by a linear contrast [z = −9.38, p < .001]. There was also a significant effect of
listener group [χ 2 (1) = 16.89, p < .001], such that the probability of success in the DD
group (p = .71) was smaller than in the TD group (p = .92). The important finding of a
two-way interaction between level and listener group [χ 2 (2) = 8.73, p = .013] suggests
that group differences varied as a function of referential ambiguity. As shown in Fig. 2b, the
group differences in CSSL performance appear to be larger for the highest level of referential
ambiguity. Emmeans contrasts indicated that both the DD and the TD groups exhibited CSSL
at a level above chance (25%; both Bonferroni adjusted ps < .0001).
3.2.2. Binary confidence judgments

3.2.2.1. Guessing score: The guessing score (see Fig. 3b) differed significantly from
chance (25%) for both the TD and the DD groups (both Bonferroni adjusted ps < .03). This
pattern points to the development of implicit knowledge. Mixed effects model analysis indi-
cated a significant difference in guessing scores between the two groups [χ 2 (2) = 6.618, p =
.011], such that the DD group (p = .47) exhibited a lower guessing score than the TD group
(p = .81). None of the remaining effects were significant.
3.2.2.2. Zero correlation score: Only main effects or interactions with zero type score
were reported. A mixed effects model revealed a significant main effect of zero type score
[χ 2 (1) = 33.25, p < .0001], with better performance on the CSSL task when participants
stated that they knew [p(ZeroA) = .78] than when they stated they were guessing [p(ZeroB)
= .41]. There was also a significant three-way interaction of group, zero type score, and level
[χ 2 (2) = 7.42, p = .02] and a subsequent linear contrast [z = 2.72, p = .0065] suggests that
participants in the TD group performed better on the CSSL task when they stated they knew
than when they stated they were guessing (see Fig. 4b). This difference was most pronounced
when referential ambiguity was increased. In the DD group, however, this pattern was most
pronounced when referential ambiguity decreased.
3.2.2.3. Type II d’: The Type II d’ scores of the TD group [d’ = .85] and of the DD group
[d’ = .74] differed significantly from zero (both Bonferroni adjusted ps < .0002), suggesting
the development of explicit knowledge (see Fig. 5b). Mixed model analysis did not reveal any
main effects or interaction with Type II d’ scores when the two groups were compared as a
function of referential ambiguity (all p > .11).
3.2.3. Cross-experiment comparison

CSSL performance: When comparing across experiments, the main effect of level [χ 2
(2) = 132.44, p < .001] and the main effect of group [χ 2 (1) = 38.99, p < .001] were
both significant. A two-way interaction of level by condition [χ 2 (2) = 7.44, p = .02] also
emerged. Further analysis revealed that performance was differentially modulated by level
across the two experiments as revealed by a quadratic contrast (z = −2.40, p = .001). The
two-way interaction of group by level was significant [χ 2 (2) = 6.84, p = .032], representing a
critical finding. Further analysis revealed that performance decreased as referential ambiguity
increased to a greater extent in the DD group than in the TD group as revealed by a linear
contrast (z = −2.65, p = .008). The three-level interaction of group, level, and experiment
failed to reach significance [χ 2 (2) = 5.42, p = .06].
3.2.4. Binary confidence measures

3.2.4.1. Guessing score: Both groups exhibited guessing scores above chance level (all
p < .001). A mixed effects model revealed a significant main effect of group [χ 2 (1) = 12.5,
p = .004], with the DD group exhibiting a reduced guessing score (p = .42) than among TD
readers (p = .69). There was also a significant main effect of level [χ 2 (2) = 12.42, p =
.002], such that the guessing score decreased as referential ambiguity increased as revealed
by a significant linear contrast [z = −.4.38, p < .001]. Finally, there was also a significant
main effect of experiment [χ 2 (1) = 4.73, p = .029], such that the guessing score was higher
in Experiment 2 (p = .64) than in Experiment 1 (p = .47). None of the remaining effects were
significant.
3.2.4.2. Zero correlation score: Only main effects or interactions with zero score type
were reported. A mixed effects model revealed a significant main effect of zero type score [χ 2
(1) = 72.16, p < .0001], with better performance on the CSSL task when participants stated
that they knew [p(ZeroA) = .81] than when they stated they were guessing [p(ZeroB) = .42].
The significant three-way interaction of group, zero type score, and level [χ 2 (2) = 8.736, p
= .012] and the following linear contrast [z = 7.852, p = .004] suggest that participants in the
TD group performed better on the CSSL task when they stated that they knew than when they
stated they were guessing. This difference was most pronounced when referential ambiguity
was increased. However, in the DD group, this pattern was most pronounced when referential
ambiguity decreased.
3.2.4.3. Type II d’ score: There were no significant main effects or interactions.
3.2.5. Correlations between confidence measures

There were no correlations between the guessing and zero correlation scores in either the
DD or the TD groups. There was a negative correlation between Type II d’ and guessing score
in both the DD (r = −.56, p < .001) and TD (r = −.46, p < .001) groups. Furthermore, Type
II d’ score correlated positively with the zero-correlation score (A vs. B) for both the DD (r
= .94, p < .001) and the TD (r = .94, p < .001) groups.
3.2.6. Correlations between CSSL performance and confidence measures

CSSL performance was positively correlated with the development of implicit knowledge
(guessing score) in both the DD (r = .81, p < .001) and the TD groups (r = .81, p = .001).
Note that CSSL performance was positively correlated with participants’ awareness of their
own performance (Type II d’ score) in the DD group (r = .35, p = .017), but not in the
TD group (r = .05, p = .75). CSSL performance was not significantly correlated with the
zero-correlation score in either group (all p > .05).
Like the results observed in Experiment 1, the results of Experiment 2 show that both DD
and TD participants can use statistical information to learn new words as indicated by their
above chance CSSL performance. Nevertheless, the DD group performed poorly, compared
to the TD group. Furthermore, the performance of DD participants was negatively influenced
by increases in referential ambiguity to a greater extent than was the performance of the TD
group. As within-trial reference uncertainty increased, the group differences became more
noticeable, providing evidence that the ability to learn statistical regularities is fundamen-
tally affected in DD. Indeed, manipulation of the statistical structure significantly influenced
task performance among people with DD. As in Experiment 1, here too the analysis of the
confidence ratings revealed that both groups developed explicit and implicit knowledge about
word-referent pairs, yet implicit knowledge was developed to a greater extent in the TD group
than in the DD group.
4. General discussion
In this study, we examined the ability of young adults with DD and TD readers to tabulate
statistical information across situations in order to discover word-referent mappings. Com-
pared to TD readers, young adults with DD exhibited poorer performance on CSSL tasks.
As a group, participants with DD performed above chance level on the CSSL tasks in both
experiments. Although people with DD were capable of exhibiting CSSL more than expected
by chance, they did so less efficiently than TD readers in both experiments. Manipulating
the referential ambiguity affected the performance of the DD group to a greater extent than
among TD learners across experiments. Furthermore, the impairment was evident in both
native (novel objects) and second (familiar objects) language-like situations.
Offering participants the opportunity to rate their judgments enabled us to assess the
development of explicit (conscious) and implicit (unconscious) knowledge during CSSL. We
observed that CSSL across the two experiments was accompanied by the development of
implicit knowledge (based on guessing scores) and explicit knowledge (based on the zero-
correlation criterion and the Type II d’ scores) in both the DD and the TD groups. The guess-
ing criterion score was significantly higher in the TD group than in the DD group, indicating
less development of implicit knowledge, compared to TD readers across experiments. In con-
trast, no group differences were observed regarding zero correlation/Type II d’ scores, point-
ing to a similar development of explicit knowledge across the two groups. It should be noted
that most participants completed Experiment 2 approximately 5 to 6 months after completing
Experiment 1. This raises the possibility of practice effects or may suggest more development
of explicit knowledge in Experiment 2 than in Experiment 1. If these factors contributed to
task performance, they should influence both groups in a similar manner. Furthermore, CSSL
performance in Experiment 2 was not better than in Experiment 1, and the guessing score
across groups was higher in Experiment 2 than in Experiment 1, indicating greater develop-
ment of implicit knowledge in Experiment 2. It is possible that word-referent associations are
more easily formed when referents are familiar and are therefore less subject to conscious
control than associations involving novel referents.
Taken together, these findings are consistent with prior research revealing the involvement
of both implicit and explicit knowledge in CSSL (Franco et al., 2016; Hamrick et al., 2012).
They serve as the first demonstration of differences in acquired knowledge between DD and
TD readers in the context of language-related SL using subjective measures of awareness.
People with DD develop less implicit knowledge when confronted with SL challenges than
do TD readers, whereas their development of explicit knowledge is similar to that of TD read-
ers and is positively correlated with their CSSL performance. These findings resonate with
recent evidence revealing slower shifting and less efficient use of implicit strategies alongside
intact use of explicit strategies in those with DD when learning to categorize stimuli from
complex auditory category distributions (Gabay, Roark, & Holt, 2023). This converging evi-
dence supports the view that learning via the implicit/procedural memory system is disrupted
in DD (Nicolson & Fawcett, 1990; Ullman & Pullman, 2015).
The current findings suggest that people with DD have impaired CSSL. Several hypotheses
can be proposed regarding the locus of the deficit. The CSSL task includes a visual compo-
nent, a linguistic component, and statistical information aggregation/hypothesis testing com-
ponents. Impairments in any one of these processes can contribute to CSSL impairments in
DD. The observation that people with DD were impaired in CSSL both when visual referents
were novel and with familiar objects reduces the possibility that problems in visual aspects
contribute to the observed group differences. As the perception of familiar and novel objects
is likely to involve different perceptual processes (holistic vs. configural; Noudoost, Adibi,
Moeeny, & Esteky, 2005), the finding of a similar SL impairment in DD across familiar and
novel objects suggests that the visuo-perceptual difficulties noted in DD (Gabay, Dundas,
Plaut, & Behrmann, 2017) are not the source of the group differences. On the other hand, the
linguistic component may potentially give rise to the observed group differences. People with
DD have trouble processing phonological information, for example, when they are asked
to discriminate between minimal word pairs that differ in phonetic contrast (Mohammed,
Campbell, Macsweeney, Barry, & Coleman, 2006). A problem discriminating between these
sounds makes it more difficult to map them to visual referents. The observation that par-
ticipants with DD exhibited CSSL performance above chance reduces this possibility. We
also consider this possibility less likely as in the present study, listeners heard highly phono-
logically distinct pseudowords as opposed to phonologically less distinct pseudowords that
constitute a perceptually difficult learning challenge (see Escudero et al., 2016). A third pos-
sibility is that people with DD have trouble with statistical information aggregation or explicit
hypothesis testing, thus affecting their CSSL performance. Research suggests that CSSL can
be accomplished via explicit hypothesis testing (Trueswell, Medina, Hafri, & Gleitman, 2013)
or/and implicit associative learning mechanisms (Dautriche & Chemla, 2014; Yu & Smith,
2007). The second possibility is more aligned with procedural memory functions that are
presumed to be affected in DD (Nicolson & Fawcett, 2011; Ullman et al., 2020). Procedural
memory functions are acquired incrementally via multiple exposures (Knowlton & Moody,
2008), similar to how object–word pairings are acquired by an associative account of CSSL.
Consistent with this notion is the observation that people with amnesia who cannot acquire
explicit knowledge (Schacter et al., 2000) show intact CSSL (Warren, Roembke, Covington,
McMurray, & Duff, 2020). An impaired ability to learn statistical regularities in DD is
supported by the observation that performance plummeted for the DD group when the SL
challenge was greater. This pattern is in line with a meta-analysis concluding that implicit SL
impairments in DD are most pronounced when SL challenges increase (Lum et al., 2013).
Furthermore, the observation that individuals with DD were less likely to develop implicit
knowledge than were TD readers while their ability to develop explicit knowledge was simi-
lar implies that impaired implicit associative learning in DD contributed to the observed group
differences. As language acquisition greatly relies on the ability to implicitly learn statistical
regularities, an impaired implicit associative learning may negatively influence their ability
to acquire language-related skills. The observation that the DD group continued to exhibit
impaired CSSL relative to the TD group does not exclude the possibility of reliance on explicit
memory as compensation for impaired implicit associative learning. It is possible that learn-
ing words cross-situationally is better when implicit rather than explicit mechanisms come
into play. Namely, it may be easier to learn such statistical regularities by implicit statisti-
cal aggregation across situations than by employing explicit mechanisms (actively searching
for regularities) as has been shown for other types of SL phenomena (Reber, 1976, 1989).
Indeed, CSSL performance in the present study was positively correlated with the develop-
ment of implicit knowledge in both groups, such that the more participants exhibited implicit
knowledge, the better their CSSL performance. Note that only in the DD group, CSSL perfor-
mance positively correlated with the participants’ awareness of their own performance (Type
II d’ scores). These findings support the notion that individuals with DD are more likely to
rely on explicit/declarative memory when learning statistical regularities, possibly due to a
dysfunctional procedural memory system (Nicolson & Fawcett, 2011; Ullman et al., 2020).
Taken together, the findings of the current study are consistent with previous evidence
suggesting that the ability to extract statistical information embedded in the environment is
impaired in people with DD. People with DD are less able to extract syllables from fluent
speech (Gabay et al., 2015), track distributional information to discover sound categories
(Gabay & Holt, 2015; Gabay et al., 2023), or use probabilistic information in the con-
text of incremental learning of cue–outcome associations (Gabay, 2021; Gabay et al., 2015;
Massarwe, Nissan, & Gabay, 2021). The current findings broaden these earlier investigations
by showing that SL difficulties in DD are not limited to syllable or sound linguistic levels
but are also evident in other fundamental language learning challenges, such as the ability
to map words to novel/familiar objects in the environment. Our investigation suggests that
these impairments are present in both native- and second-language-like situations, consistent
with native- and second-language acquisition difficulties reported in DD (Di Betta & Romani,
2006; Schneider, 2012; Sparks et al., 1989). The observed findings raise the possibility that
the smaller vocabulary observed in people with DD may arise not only from reduced exposure
to written language, as previously suggested (Duff, Tomblin, & Catts, 2015), but also from a
reduced ability to rely on SL mechanisms that support the pairing of sounds to objects in real-
world environments in which uncertainty and ambiguity are common. Since spoken vocab-
ulary growth and phonemic awareness are likely to interact (Walley, Metsala, & Garlock,
2003), the reduced spoken vocabulary developed through SL processes may affect speech
and reading-related skills in people with DD. Furthermore, it is also possible that learning the
association between spoken sounds and their visual objects can affect reading via its impact
on phonetic category acquisition. For example, if a learner has difficulty deciding a priori
whether vowel categories /ae/ and /E/ (that overlap in the acoustic space) belong to one or
two categories, their presentation in two different word contexts (i.e., “b[ae]t” and “[E]gg”)
could help differentiate them (Fourtassi, 2015). In this way, visual information can function
as a teaching signal for phonetic category learning when it is consistently aligned with sta-
tistically structured acoustic input (McMurray, 2021, 2022). Indeed, evidence suggests that
pairing objects and sounds influences the phonetic sensitivity of 9-month-old infants (Yeung
& Werker, 2009) and that word-referent associations affect speech segmentation (Cunillera
et al., 2010). In this sense, CSSL has the potential to contribute to learning to read via its
influence on phonetic category acquisition.
To conclude, across two experiments, we observed that the performance of people with
DD was significantly poorer than that of TD readers and that they were less likely to develop
implicit knowledge. These findings suggest that SL deficits in DD are likely to extend beyond
the sound and syllable levels to the word level and are likely to arise due to impaired associa-
tive learning, thus negatively affecting the language development of people with DD.
Data Availability Statement

The data and materials are publicly available via the Open Science Framework at https:
//osf.io/kmtqy. The experiments were not pre-registered.
Conflict of Interest
The authors declare no competing interests.
Note
1 CR = Correct responses, WR = Wrong responses.
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Cognitive Science 47 (2023) e13325

Reduced Implicit but not Explicit Knowledge of

Keywords: Developmental dyslexia; Cross-situational statistical learning; Statistical learning;

paradigms pointed to converging evidence of an apparent SL weakness in individuals with

1.1. Cross-situational statistical learning (CSSL)

1.2. Measuring implicit and explicit knowledge

Rebuschat, 2013). Among these approaches, a well-established way of dissociating conscious

1.3. The present study

2.1.2. Cognitive/language batteries

2.1.3. Stimuli and design

Ability Test Description

Measurement TD Group M (SD) DD Group M (SD) t-Value p

2.2.2. Data analysis—CSSL performance

Measure Level Number of DD Readers Number of TD Readers

2.2.3. Confidence judgments

no. of WR while knowing

no. of WR while knowing

Type II d score = Z (HIT) − Z (FA)

2.3. Results and discussion

2.3.2. Binary confidence judgments

In the second experiment, we aimed to determine whether CSSL impairments in DD

Measurement TD Group M (SD) DD group M (SD) t-Value p

Measure Level Number of DD Readers Number of TD Reader

3.1.2. Stimuli and design

3.1.4. Approach to analysis

3.2. Results and discussion

3.2.2. Binary confidence judgments

3.2.3. Cross-experiment comparison

3.2.4. Binary confidence measures

3.2.4.3. Type II d’ score: There were no significant main effects or interactions.

3.2.5. Correlations between confidence measures

3.2.6. Correlations between CSSL performance and confidence measures

Data Availability Statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

1 CR = Correct responses, WR = Wrong responses.

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