# Speech Stream Composition Affects Statistical Learning: Behavioral and Neural Evidence

## TL;DR

This study shows that the structure of speech streams influences statistical learning, with mixed patterns enhancing learning more than uniform ones.

## Contribution

The study introduces a novel mixed speech stream condition to test how entropy affects statistical learning.

## Key findings

- Behavioral results showed signs of statistical learning across all stream conditions.
- Neural data revealed enhanced processing for mixed speech streams compared to uniform ones.
- Moderate entropy in speech streams appears to boost statistical learning.

## Abstract

Statistical learning (SL), the ability to extract patterns from the environment, has been assumed to play a central role in whole cognition, particularly in language acquisition. Evidence has been gathered, however, from behavioral experiments relying on simplified artificial languages, raising doubts on the generalizability of these results to natural contexts. Here, we tested if SL is affected by the composition of the speech streams by expositing participants to auditory streams containing either four nonsense words presenting a transitional probability (TP) of 1 (unmixed high-TP condition), four nonsense words presenting TPs of 0.33 (unmixed low-TP condition) or two nonsense words presenting a TP of 1, and two of a TP of 0.33 (mixed condition); first under incidental (implicit), and, subsequently, under intentional (explicit) conditions to further ascertain how prior knowledge modulates the results. Electrophysiological and behavioral data were collected from the familiarization and test phases of each of the SL tasks. Behavior results revealed reliable signs of SL for all the streams, even though differences across stream conditions failed to reach significance. The neural results revealed, however, facilitative processing of the mixed over the unmixed low-TP and the unmixed high-TP conditions in the N400 and P200 components, suggesting that moderate levels of entropy boost SL.