This study tested whether individual sensitivity to an auditory perceptual cue called amplitude rise time (ART) facilitates novel word learning. Forty adult native speakers of Polish performed a perceptual task testing their sensitivity to ART, learned associations between nonwords and pictures of common objects, and were subsequently tested on their knowledge with a picture recognition (PR) task. In the PR task participants heard each nonword, followed either by a congruent or incongruent picture, and had to assess if the picture matched the nonword. Word learning efficiency was measured by accuracy and reaction time on the PR task and modulation of the N300 ERP. As predicted, participants with greater sensitivity to ART showed better performance in PR suggesting that auditory sensitivity indeed facilitates learning of novel words. Contrary to expectations, the N300 was not modulated by sensitivity to ART suggesting that the behavioral and ERP measures reflect different underlying processes.

中文翻译：

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语言的耳朵

这项研究测试了个体对称为振幅上升时间 (ART) 的听觉感知线索的敏感性是否有助于新词的学习。四十名以波兰语为母语的成年母语人士执行了一项感知任务，测试他们对 ART 的敏感性，学习非单词和常见物体图片之间的关联，随后通过图片识别 (PR) 任务测试他们的知识。在 PR 任务中，参与者听到每个非单词，然后是一致或不一致的图片，并且必须评估图片是否与非单词匹配。单词学习效率通过 PR 任务的准确性和反应时间以及 N300 ERP 的调制来衡量。正如预测的那样，对 ART 更敏感的参与者在 PR 中表现出更好的表现，这表明听觉敏感性确实有助于学习新词。