Periodic Reporting for period 1 - REGRAMM (Relationships of receptive grammar acquisition with musical rhythm processing and executive functions)
Reporting period: 2022-07-01 to 2024-06-30
Language enables humans to communicate and hence to benefit from the knowledge of others. A core linguistic ability is grammar ability that allows us to understand (receptive grammar) and express (expressive grammar) the relations between words in sentences. Several theories of grammar acquisition emphasize the complex interplay between linguistic and non-linguistic processes in grammar development. Two non-linguistic cognitive abilities that are linked with grammar are executive functions (EFs) and musical rhythm processing. EFs are a set of top-down mental processes that are responsible for goal-directed thinking and behaviour by facilitating relevant and inhibiting irrelevant behaviours/representations. Previous research has shown evidence for the relations of both EFs and rhythm processing with grammar. These relations, however, have been only tested in separate studies so far; therefore, it is unclear whether EFs and rhythm processing can explain additional variance in receptive grammar beyond each other or one ability mediates the relation of receptive grammar with the other ability (e.g. if the association of rhythm processing and grammar is solely driven by individual variability in EFs).
Testing theories on the role of non-linguistic abilities in grammar development often requires assessing several linguistic and non-linguistic abilities in a large group of children, that could be highly facilitated by ecologically valid and engaging tasks, such as gamified tablet-based tasks.
The REGRAMM project had two objectives: 1) To investigate the relations of individual differences in receptive grammar with individual differences in EFs and musical rhythm processing in children. 2) To develop and validate a novel gamified battery to measure EFs, rhythm processing and receptive grammar in children.
Testing theories on the role of non-linguistic abilities in grammar development often requires assessing several linguistic and non-linguistic abilities in a large group of children, that could be highly facilitated by ecologically valid and engaging tasks, such as gamified tablet-based tasks.
The REGRAMM project had two objectives: 1) To investigate the relations of individual differences in receptive grammar with individual differences in EFs and musical rhythm processing in children. 2) To develop and validate a novel gamified battery to measure EFs, rhythm processing and receptive grammar in children.
To reach the above objectives, we conducted two behavioural studies. In Study 1, we investigated the relations of EFs and rhythm processing with receptive grammar with traditional cognitive tasks that children completed in one visit. In Study 2, a different cohort of children participated in two visits and completed the same traditional tasks as in Study 1 at one visit and the gamified versions of the same tasks at the other visit (the order of visits was counterbalanced across children). We compared performance on the traditional and gamified versions of the tasks to test the validity of the gamified tasks. We collected data from 6-8-year-old German-speaking children with 89 participants in Study 1 and 31 participants in Study 2 at the University of Potsdam. Children were recruited via the BabyLab Potsdam and via schools, social media, mailing lists in order to recruit a socially diverse sample.
In Study 1, we measured children’s receptive grammar ability, EFs and rhythm processing with traditional primarily computer-based tasks commonly used in this age group. We used sentence-picture matching tasks to assess their grammar ability. From EFs we decided to measure inhibition (i.e. the ability to deliberately inhibit dominant, automatic, or prepotent responses when necessary; measured with a flanker task) and working memory updating (i.e. monitoring incoming information in working memory and replacing old, no longer relevant information with newer, more relevant information; measured with an n-back task) because these subfunctions have been shown to be associated with grammar ability by previous studies. We used a rhythm discrimination task and a synchronization tapping task to measure musical rhythm processing. Additionally, we collected data on potential confounding variables including the child’s short-term memory (digit span task), age, biological sex, parent education, musical and language-literacy environment.
Our results revealed that children’s grammar ability was associated both with their inhibition and rhythm discrimination ability even when we controlled for the other non-linguistic variables of interest and the potential covariates.
In Study 1, we measured children’s receptive grammar ability, EFs and rhythm processing with traditional primarily computer-based tasks commonly used in this age group. We used sentence-picture matching tasks to assess their grammar ability. From EFs we decided to measure inhibition (i.e. the ability to deliberately inhibit dominant, automatic, or prepotent responses when necessary; measured with a flanker task) and working memory updating (i.e. monitoring incoming information in working memory and replacing old, no longer relevant information with newer, more relevant information; measured with an n-back task) because these subfunctions have been shown to be associated with grammar ability by previous studies. We used a rhythm discrimination task and a synchronization tapping task to measure musical rhythm processing. Additionally, we collected data on potential confounding variables including the child’s short-term memory (digit span task), age, biological sex, parent education, musical and language-literacy environment.
Our results revealed that children’s grammar ability was associated both with their inhibition and rhythm discrimination ability even when we controlled for the other non-linguistic variables of interest and the potential covariates.
Results from Study 1 go beyond the state of the art of the field and suggest that children with better rhythm ability also have better grammar ability and this association cannot be accounted for by children’s inhibition ability or other potential confounding factors. This result implies that an exhaustive model of grammar development should account for the role of both rhythm processing and inhibition in addition to other linguistic and non-linguistic abilities. Study 2, to our knowledge, was the first study that systematically tested the effect of gamification in a grammar task. Our results suggest that the gamified version of the grammar task motivates children to reach a better performance and could be a more accurate measure of grammar ability than traditional grammar tasks.