Browsing by Author "Kärhä, Tuomas"

Objective: Recent research has shown that simple novel words can be acquired rapidly through a short repetitive exposure without focused attention. However, monomorphemic words construct only a part of a language – little research has focused on the rapid acquisition of novel suffixes attached to familiar word stems. The present study was conducted to explore the online acquisition of novel suffixes by investigating how the measured neural activity in response to the newly learned suffix changes over a passive listening session; and to examine if a short consolidation period, containing either sleep or wakefulness, affects this change. Methods: Participants were trained with novel suffixes using a semantic word-picture association task. Afterwards, their neural activity was monitored with electroencephalography (EEG) during two passive listening phases for 15 min in total, and the event-related potentials to different types of suffixes (real, semantically trained novel, or untrained novel) attached to real word stems were measured. In addition, the experiment contained a 90-min retention period of either sleep or wakefulness between the passive listening phases. To identify changes in neural activity, linear regression models from different conditions were compared against their respective null models using a chi-squared goodness-of-fit test. To examine the effects of different conditions on the degrees of change of neural activity, a repeated measures analysis of variance was conducted. Results and conclusion: In line with previous rapid learning research, the results indicate that neural activation in response to novel suffixes can increase without overnight consolidation. A relatively short offline retention period can increase the degree of change of neural activation in response to novel suffixes, although no conclusive sleep-related effects were found.