# Taking time: Auditory statistical learning benefits from distributed exposure

## TL;DR

This study shows that spreading out exposure to speech patterns over several days improves long-term learning compared to cramming it all in one day.

## Contribution

The study demonstrates that spaced exposure enhances long-term auditory statistical learning compared to massed exposure.

## Key findings

- Spaced and massed exposure groups showed equal learning during exposure.
- After a 2-week delay, the spaced group had higher accuracy in a forced-choice test.
- Spaced exposure improves long-term retention of statistical patterns in speech.

## Abstract

In an auditory statistical learning paradigm, listeners learn to partition a continuous stream of syllables by discovering the repeating syllable patterns that constitute the speech stream. Here, we ask whether auditory statistical learning benefits from spaced exposure compared with massed exposure. In a longitudinal online study on Prolific, we exposed 100 participants to the regularities in a spaced way (i.e., with exposure blocks spread out over 3 days) and another 100 in a massed way (i.e., with all exposure blocks lumped together on a single day). In the exposure phase, participants listened to streams composed of pairs while responding to a target syllable. The spaced and massed groups exhibited equal learning during exposure, as indicated by a comparable response-time advantage for predictable target syllables. However, in terms of resulting long-term knowledge, we observed a benefit from spaced exposure. Following a 2-week delay period, we tested participants’ knowledge of the pairs in a forced-choice test. While both groups performed above chance, the spaced group had higher accuracy. Our findings speak to the importance of the timing of exposure to structured input and also for statistical learning outside of the laboratory (e.g., in language development), and imply that current investigations of auditory statistical learning likely underestimate human statistical learning abilities.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.3758/s13423-024-02634-w.