A crucial aspect when learning a language is discovering the rules that govern how words are combined in order to convey meanings. Because rules are characterized by sequential co-occurrences between elements (e.g., “These cupcakes are unbelievable”), tracking the statistical relationships between these elements is fundamental. However, purely bottom-up statistical learning alone cannot fully account for the ability to create abstract rule representations that can be generalized, a paramount requirement of linguistic rules. Here, we provide evidence that, after the statistical relations between words have been extracted, the engagement of goal-directed attention is key to enable rule generalization. Incidental learning performance during a rule-learning task on an artificial language revealed a progressive shift from statistical learning to goal-directed attention. In addition, and consistent with the recruitment of attention, functional MRI (fMRI) analyses of late learning stages showed left parietal activity within a broad bilateral dorsal frontoparietal network. Critically, repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) on participants’ peak of activation within the left parietal cortex impaired their ability to generalize learned rules to a structurally analogous new language. No stimulation or rTMS on a nonrelevant brain region did not have the same interfering effect on generalization. Performance on an additional attentional task showed that this rTMS on the parietal site hindered participants’ ability to integrate “what” (stimulus identity) and “when” (stimulus timing) information about an expected target. The present findings suggest that learning rules from speech is a two-stage process: following statistical learning, goal-directed attention—involving left parietal regions—integrates “what” and “when” stimulus information to facilitate rapid rule generalization.

学习语言时的一个关键方面是发现控制单词如何组合以传达含义的规则。因为规则的特征在于元件之间顺序共现（例如，“这些蛋糕s为未believ能够”），跟踪这些元素之间的统计关系至关重要。但是，仅靠自下而上的统计学习无法充分说明创建可以概括化的抽象规则表示的能力，这是语言规则的最重要要求。在这里，我们提供的证据表明，在提取单词之间的统计关系之后，目标导向注意力的参与是实现规则泛化的关键。在人工语言上的规则学习任务中，偶然的学习表现表明从统计学习到目标导向注意力的逐渐转变。此外，与注意力的吸引一致，后期学习阶段的功能性MRI（fMRI）分析显示，在广泛的双边背侧额顶网中存在左顶叶活动。至关重要的是 参与者在左顶叶皮层内激活峰的重复经颅磁刺激（rTMS）削弱了他们将学习到的规则概括为结构相似的新语言的能力。在不相关的大脑区域上没有刺激或rTMS对泛化没有相同的干扰作用。在一项额外的注意任务上的表现表明，该顶叶部位的rTMS阻碍了参与者整合有关预期目标的“什么”（刺激身份）和“何时”（刺激时机）信息的能力。目前的发现表明，从语音中学习规则是一个分为两个阶段的过程：在进行统计学习之后，目标导向的注意力（涉及左顶叶区域）整合了“什么”和“何时”的刺激信息，以促进规则的快速概括。